i believe it is completely necessary to start a thread for the genius poet Arthur RIMBAUD.

 

for those who are unaware of this poet I advice you to check him in the Wikipedia.

Arthur poems are wise, indicative and so dark. Several senses are fled in his poems, all you have to do is to gravitate between words and try to figure it out.

 

obviously his poems are best in French, translations are NOT as brilliant as the originals.

 

here's a selection.

 

Ophelia

 

I

 

On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping

White Ophelia floats like a great lily;

Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils...

- In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort.

 

For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia

Has passed, a white phantom, down the long black river.

For more than a thousand years her sweet madness

Has murmured its ballad to the evening breeze.

 

The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath

Her great veils rising and falling with the waters;

The shivering willows weep on her shoulder,

The rushes lean over her wide, dreaming brow.

 

The ruffled water-lilies are sighing around her;

At times she rouses, in a slumbering alder,

Some nest from which escapes a small rustle of wings;

- A mysterious anthem falls from the golden stars.

 

II

 

O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow!

Yes child, you died, carried off by a river!

- It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway

That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom.

 

It was a breath of wind, that, twisting your great hair,

Brought strange rumors to your dreaming mind;

It was your heart listening to the song of Nature

In the groans of the tree and the sighs of the nights;

 

It was the voice of mad seas, the great roar,

That shattered your child's heart, too human and too soft;

It was a handsome pale knight, a poor madman

Who one April morning sate mute at your knees!

 

Heaven! Love! Freedom! What a dream, oh poor crazed Girl!

You melted to him as snow does to a fire;

Your great visions strangled your words

- And fearful Infinity terrified your blue eye!

 

III

 

- And the poet says that by starlight

You come seeking, in the night, the flowers that you picked

And that he has seen on the water, lying in her long veils

White Ophelia floating, like a great lily.

 

Arthur Rimbaud

 

The Sleeper In The Valley

 

It is a green hollow where a stream gurgles,

Crazily catching silver rags of itself on the grasses;

Where the sun shines from the proud mountain:

It is a little valley bubbling over with light.

 

A young soldier, open-mouthed, bare-headed,

With the nape of his neck bathed in cool blue cresses,

Sleeps; he is stretched out on the grass, under the sky,

Pale on his green bed where the light falls like rain.

 

His feet in the yellow flags, he lies sleeping. Smiling as

A sick child might smile, he is having a nap:

Cradle him warmly, Nature: he is cold.

 

No odour makes his nostrils quiver;

He sleeps in the sun, his hand on his breast

At peace. There are two red holes in his right side.

 

Arthur Rimbaud

 

 

Romance

 

I

 

When you are seventeen you aren't really serious.

- One fine evening, you've had enough of beer and lemonade,

And the rowdy cafes with their dazzling lights!

- You go walking beneath the green lime trees of the promenade.

 

The lime trees smell good on fine evenings in June!

The air is so soft sometimes, you close your eyelids;

The wind, full of sounds, - the town's not far away -

Carries odours of vines, and odours of beer...

 

II

 

- Then you see a very tiny rag

Of dark blue, framed by a small branch,

Pierced by an unlucky star which is melting away

With soft little shivers, small, perfectly white...

 

June night! Seventeen! - You let yourself get drunk.

The sap is champagne and goes straight to your head...

You are wandering; you feel a kiss on your lips

Which quivers there like something small and alive...

 

III

 

Your mad heart goes Crusoeing through all the romances,

- When, under the light of a pale street lamp,

Passes a young girl with charming little airs,

In the shadow of her father's terrifying stiff collar...

 

And because you strike her as absurdly naif,

As she trots along in her little ankle boots,

She turns, wide awake, with a brisk movement...

And then cavatinas die on your lips...

 

IV

 

You're in love. Taken until the month of August.

You're in love - Your sonnets make Her laugh.

All your friends disappear, you are not quite the thing.

- Then your adored one, one evening, condescends to write to you...!

 

That evening,... - you go back again to the dazzling cafes,

You ask for beer or for lemonade...

- You are not really serious when you are seventeen

And there are green lime trees on the promenade..

.

shame wikisource have nothing in english :(

 

go rimbaud go!

oh my, it is not in English?

 

i can't see it in English, can't you?

what you quoted is in english but according to his page in wikisource (wiki that have texts of writers) they have no poems there -they show red for me, which means link to be edited).

oh i see, maybe i can find a link.

http://www.poemhunter.com/arthur-rimbaud/

is this enough? :p

awesome, thanks :thumbsup:

you're welcome.

which books have you read Bea? :)