Arthur Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet who is known for his influence on modern literature and arts, which prefigured surrealism. Born in Charleville-Mézières, he started writing at a very young age and was a prodigious student, but abandoned his formal education in his teenage years to run away from home amidst the Franco-Prussian War. After running away, during his late adolescence and early adulthood, he began the bulk of his literary...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth20 October 1854
CountryFrance
O witches, O misery, O hate, to you has my treasure been entrusted! I contrived to purge my mind of all human hope. On all joy, to strangle it, I pounced with the strength of a wild beast. I called to the plagues to smother me in blood, in sand, misfortune was my God.
In the great glasshouses streaming with condensation, the children in mourning-dress beheld marvels.
True life is elsewhere
As I descended into impassable rivers I no longer felt guided by the ferrymen.
The wolf howled under the leaves And spit out the prettiest feathers Of his meal of fowl: Like him I consume myself.
Eternity is the sun mixed with the sea
I'm intact, and I don't give a damn.
What is my nothingness to the stupor that awaits you?
Oh! If only we were naked now, and free to watch our protruding parts align; To whisper - both of us - in ecstasy!
And from then on, I bathed in the Poem of the Sea, star-infused, and opalescent, devouring green azures
One evening I sat Beauty on my knees – And I found her bitter – And I reviled her.
I went out under the sky, Muse! and I was your vassal.
Morality is the weakness of the mind.
Here I am on the shore of Brittany. Let the cities light up in the evening. My day is done. I am leaving Europe. The sea air will burn my lungs. Lost climates will tan me. I will swim, trample the grass, hung, and smoke especially. I will drink alcohol as strong as boiling metal--just as my dear ancestors did around their fires.