BOHEMIENS EN VOYAGE BY BAUDELAIRE
The gypsies, a tribe with eyes of flame, Begin their evening journey carrying Children on their backs or at their swollen Breasts to feed the fierce hunger. Knives Gleaming in the dusk-light mark the men Walking aside the wagons carrying Family. Their eyes survey the heavens For lost dreams. Crickets watch them pass, Redouble their song. Cybele loves them And her verdure blooms desert, runs water
>From stone before their passage—
For the darkness ahead
Unveils their empire of the familiar.
TO GERARD DE NERVAL
“I do not ask of God that he should change anything in events themselves, but that he should change me in regard to things, so that I might have the power to create my own universe about me, to govern my dreams instead of enduring them.”
Gerard de Nerval as quoted by Arthur Symons
I.
Under how many names did you love the blonde Adrienne, the one who pecked your cheek That evening outside the dark chateau, The one whose hair you crowned with laurels As if remembered rather than just met?
There was Jenny Colon, the actress:
The lilt of her smile like the curve of a seashell, Her white fingers softer than the sand of Nantes.
Then she died too. There were others,
But they did not draw you to the halls
Of the Palais-Royal, leading a lobster
At the end of a blue ribbon. Only Myrtho.
Your reasoning was that it would not bark And knew the secrets of the sea.
II.
Healed, you went east to the badlands
Of Syria to assure us you’d recovered
Your reason. On the steps of the Sheik
Of Lebanon’s palace, Salema, a young druse
Perpetuated the dream and you almost proposed.
But, seized by an idea or by somnambulism
You returned to Paris. There you groped
Through filthy alleys after phantoms.
You lost yourself and spent hours, days
Finding your way back—the writing
Dwindling to less than twenty lines a day.
III.
You stormed into the Revue de Paris
With your latest phantom: an apron string
You proclaimed the girdle of Madame de Maintenon
Who performed in Esther at Saint Cyr.
Another actress, your mind again decomposed.
The darkness of the streets reeked of fear
But you clung to the apron string:
“It is the garter of the Queen of Sheba.”
The thin thread of an idea led you
To the rue de la Vieille-Lanterne:
“The Immaculate Conception by geometry…”
Little could the landlord of the penny doss
Who heard the knocking against his window
Guess what drink brought you there.
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