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Rimbaud : RAGES DE CÉSARS

The pale man walks by the flowering lawn,
Dressed in black, a cigar between his teeth :
He quietly recalls the flowers of Tuileries
And at times a fire seems to light his dull eye.

For the Emperor is drunk from twenty years
Of orgy. He had said to himself : I will blow
Out liberty delicately, as I would a candle.
He recalls his freedom now! He feels spent.


He is caught.—What name trembles on his
Mute lips? What implacable regret harrows
Him? We cannot know. His eye is lifeless.

He thinks perhaps of his spectacled Compère.
He watches his smouldering cigar send up, as
On evenings at Saint-Cloud, a fine blue plume.