Get Drunk! -- Charles Baudelaire

Guest poem submitted by Suresh Ramasubramanian:

(Poem #581) Get Drunk! Always be drunk. That's it! The great imperative! In order not to feel Time's horrid fardel bruise your shoulders, grinding you into the earth, Get drunk and stay that way. On what? On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever. But get drunk. And if you sometimes happen to wake up on the porches of a palace, in the green grass of a ditch, in the dismal loneliness of your own room, your drunkenness gone or disappearing, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, ask everything that flees, everything that groans or rolls or sings, everything that speaks, ask what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will answer you: "Time to get drunk! Don't be martyred slaves of Time, Get drunk! Stay drunk! On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!" -- Charles Baudelaire

A wonderful celebration of the fact of being alive, shot through with
excitement and exhilaration and sheer unbridled joy: it _is_ good to get off
the wagon and get drunk, all right - especially if you drink of life the way
Baudelaire does. I used to think that Keats' "the blushful Hippocrene" in
Skylark was the epitome of getting drunk poetically, but this is even better
- it's not merely a longing for joy (as Keats' poem was) but a gorgeous
expression thereof...

Suresh.

PS. Credits to Deepa Balakrishnan for suggesting this poem to me.

[thomas adds]

I wasn't able to find a completely satisfying translation of this poem on
the Web; this version is the best of a distinctly average lot. Here's the
original, for the French-speakers among you:

 'Enivrez-Vous'

 Il faut être toujours ivre.
 Tout est là:
 c'est l'unique question.
 Pour ne pas sentir
 l'horrible fardeau du Temps
 qui brise vos épaules
 et vous penche vers la terre,
 il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.
 Mais de quoi?
 De vin, de poésie, ou de vertu, à votre guise.
 Mais enivrez-vous.
 Et si quelquefois,
 sur les marches d'un palais,
 sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé,
 dans la solitude morne de votre chambre,
 vous vous réveillez,
 l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue,
 demandez au vent,
 à la vague,
 à l'étoile,
 à l'oiseau,
 à l'horloge,
 à tout ce qui fuit,
 à tout ce qui gémit,
 à tout ce qui roule,
 à tout ce qui chante,
 à tout ce qui parle,
 demandez quelle heure il est;
 et le vent,
 la vague,
 l'étoile,
 l'oiseau,
 l'horloge,
 vous répondront:
 "Il est l'heure de s'enivrer!
 Pour n'être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps,
 enivrez-vous;
 enivrez-vous sans cesse!
 De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise."

        -- Charles Baudelaire

Another translation, with an interesting visual, is available at
[broken link] http://www-as.phy.ohiou.edu/~rouzie/fall153/final_projects/final_project/absolut.html

The Albatross -- Charles Baudelaire

Guest poem submitted by Vikram Doctor:

(Poem #534) The Albatross Often to pass the time on board, the crew will catch an albatross, one of those big birds which nonchalently chaperone a ship across the bitter fathoms of the sea. Tied to the deck, this sovereign of space, as if embarrassed by its clumsiness, pitiably lets its great white wings drag at its sides like a pair of unshipped oars. How weak and awkward, even comical this traveller but lately so adoit - one deckhand sticks a pipestem in its beak, another mocks the cripple that once flew! The Poet is like this monarch of the clouds riding the storm above the marksman's range; exiled on the ground, hooted and jeered, he cannot walk because of his great wings. -- Charles Baudelaire

tr. Richard Howard.

This collection would be incomplete without Baudelaire. But having given the
poem above, I can see the problem. Its not a bad translation, but Baudelaire
doesn't seem to be a poet who translates well. The original, given below, has a
quality of musicality, of every word and syllable seeming exactly right, that
escapes the translation.

If you have any French though, Baudelaire is a poet who must be read (and as a
bonus, his French is relatively simple). There's this amazing atmosphere (though
not in this poem), of beauty, sensuality, music, decay. Its what he's writing
about, and the feel of the poems matches it brilliantly. (Its also why he works
very well set to music: I think there's a French singer called George Brassaens
who's done some great arrangement of the poems to music).

Vikram.

'L'Albatros'

Souvent, pour s'amuser, les hommes d'équipage
Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers,
Que suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage,
Le navire glissant sur les goufres amers.

A peine les ont-ils déposés sur les planches,
Que ces rois de l'azur, maladroits et honteux,
Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches
Comes des avirons traîner à côté d'eux.

Ce voyageur ailé, come it est gauche et veule!
Lui, naguère si beau, qu'il est comique et laid!
L'un agace son bec avec un brûle-guele,
L'autre mime, en boitant, l'infirme qui volait!

Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;
Exilé sur le sol au mileu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.

        -- Charles Baudelaire