Gentle reader, being—as you are—
a cautious man of uncorrupted tastes,
lay aside this disobliging work,

After my friend and I left the tobacco shop, he carefully sorted his loose change; slipped some small gold coins in his left jacket pocket; into the right went the silver pieces; in his left pants pocket, a handful of centimes; and in the right, a silver two-franc piece he inspected closely. I wondered about this odd distribution of coins.

I am like the king of a rainy kingdom,
rich but weak, young yet very old, 

You must get drunk. That’s it: your sole imperative. To immunize yourself from the backbreaking, body-bending burdens of time, you must get drunk and stay that way.

My darling was naked, or nearly, for knowing my heart
she had left on her jewels, the bangles and chains
whose jingling music gave her the conquering air

Behave, my Sorrow! let’s have no more scenes.
Evening’s what you wanted—Evening’s here:
a gradual darkness overtakes the town,

It is a terrible terrain
   no mortal eye has seen
whose image still seduces me

The sun is all very well when it rises—then
who minds returning its abrupt salute?
But fortunate the man who still can find

No chest of drawers crammed with documents,
love-letters, wedding-invitations, wills,
a lock of someone’s hair rolled up in a deed,

Pascal had his abyss, it followed him.
But the abyss is All—action and dream,
language, desire!—and who could count the times