Arthur Rimbaud's 'Paroxysms Of Caesars' – A Poignant Reflection on Power and Madness 🖤

This man, pale, walks the flowering lawns, <br />Dressed in black, cigar between his teeth. <br />The pale man thinks about the Tuileries <br />In flower...and at times his dead eye flames. <br /> <br />His twenty years of orgy have made him drink! <br />He told himself: 'I will extinguish <br />Liberty As I put out a candle-- softly, politely...' <br />Liberty lives again! He feels worn out. <br /> <br />They've caught him. Now what name trembles <br />On his silent lips? What quick regret? <br />No one will know: the Emperor's eye is dead. <br /> <br />He sees again, perhaps, the man in the pince-nez... <br />And watches drifting from his lighted cigar, <br />Like evenings at St. Cloud, a thin blue haze. <br /> <br /> <br />Original French <br /> <br />Rages de Césars <br /> <br /> <br />L'Homme pâle, le long des pelouses fleuries, <br />Chemine, en habit noir, et le cigare aux dents : <br />L'Homme pâle repense aux fleurs des Tuileries <br />- Et parfois son oeil terne a des regards ardents... <br /> <br />Car l'Empereur est saoul de ses vingt ans d'orgie ! <br />Il s'était dit : 'Je vais souffler la liberté <br />Bien délicatement, ainsi qu'une bougie !' <br />La Liberté revit ! Il se sent éreinté ! <br /> <br />Il est pris. - Oh ! quel nom sur ses lèvres muettes <br />Tressaille ? Quel regret implacable le mord ? <br />On ne le saura pas. L'Empereur a l'oeil mort. <br /> <br />Il repense peut-être au Compère en lunettes... <br />- Et regarde filer de son cigare en feu, <br />Comme aux soirs de Saint-Cloud, un fin nuage bleu.<br /><br />Arthur Rimbaud<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/paroxysms-of-caesars-rages-de-c-sars/