A Former Life By Charles Baudelaire

   


    Long since, I lived beneath vast porticoes,
    By many ocean-sunsets tinged and fired,
    Where mighty pillars, in majestic rows,
    Seemed like basaltic caves when day expired.

    The rolling surge that mirrored all the skies
    Mingled its music, turbulent and rich,
    Solemn and mystic, with the colours which
    The setting sun reflected in my eyes.

    And there I lived amid voluptuous calms,
    In splendours of blue sky and wandering wave,
    Tended by many a naked, perfumed slave,

    Who fanned my languid brow with waving palms.
    They were my slaves – the only care they had
    To know what secret grief had made me sad.

Get drunk by Charles Baudelaire

Get drunk by Charles Baudelaire

Get Drunk

Get drunk

One should always be drunk. That’s all that matters;
that’s our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time’s
horrible burden one which breaks your shoulders and bows
you down, you must get drunk without cease.

But with what?
With wine, poetry, or virtue
as you choose.
But get drunk.

And if, at some time, on steps of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the bleak solitude of your room,
you are waking and the drunkenness has already abated,
ask the wind, the wave, the stars, the clock,
all that which flees,
all that which groans,
all that which rolls,
all that which sings,
all that which speaks,
ask them, what time it is;
and the wind, the wave, the stars, the birds, and the clock,
they will all reply:

“It is time to get drunk!

So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time,
get drunk, get drunk,
and never pause for rest!
With wine, poetry, or virtue,
as you choose!”

Charles Baudelaire

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