Morning of Drunkenness

By: Arthur Rimbaud

O my good! O my beautiful! 
Atrocious fanfare where I won’t stumble! 
enchanted rack whereon I am stretched! 
Hurrah for the amazing work and 
the marvelous body, for the first time! 

It began amid the laughter of children, 
it will end with it. This poison will remain 
in all our veins even when, as the trumpets 
turn back, we’ll be restored to the old discord. 

O let us now, we who are so deserving 
of these torments! let us fervently gather up 
that superhuman promise made to our 
created body and soul: that promise, 
that madness! 

Elegance, knowledge, violence! 

They promised us to bury the tree 
of good and evil in the shade, to banish 
tyrannical honesties, so that we might 
bring forth our very pure love. 

It began with a certain disgust and ended—
since we weren’t able to grasp this eternity 
all at once—in a panicked rout of perfumes.
      
Laughter of children, discretion of slaves, 
austerity of virgins, horror in the faces 
and objects of today, may you be 
consecrated by the memory of 
that wake. 

It began in all loutishness, now it’s ending 
among angels of flame and ice.
     
Little eve of drunkenness, holy! were it only 
for the mask with which you gratified us. 
We affirm you, method! We don’t forget 
that yesterday you glorified each one 
of our ages. 

We have faith in the poison. 
We know how to give our 
whole lives every day.
     
Behold the time of the Assassins.

---

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY JOHN ASHBERY