Hiro Fay

The Drunken Boat

(“Le Bateau ivre”  by Arthur Rimbaud)

As I was floating down unconcerned Rivers

I no longer felt myself steered by the haulers:

Gaudy Redskins had taken them for targets

Nailing them naked to coloured stakes.

I cared nothing for all my crews,

Carrying Flemish wheat or English cottons.

When, along with my haulers those uproars were done with

The Rivers let me sail downstream where I pleased.

Into the ferocious tide-rips

Last winter, more absorbed than the minds of children,

I ran! And the unmoored Peninsulas

Never endured more triumphant clamourings

The storm made bliss of my sea-borne awakenings.

Lighter than a cork, I danced on the waves

Which men call eternal rollers of victims,

For ten nights, without once missing the foolish eye of the harbor lights!

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