I, WITH my simple fate contented well,
Rimbaud, I love thy mad, incurable,
Bohemian soul, Musset among the tramps,
Dreamer on bridges and by harbour lamps,
Pale sleeper on cold station-benches, stray
Tossed into inns where boils the sudden fray,
Friend of marauding cabmen, nightly rover,
Then of a sudden vagrant eastwards over
Oceans whose bitter spray revived thee, then
Sailing thy Drunken Boat unseen of men,
Following thy tranced dream under skies so filled
With noise of voices that thy own was stilled.
Ah! thy nostalgic heart felt at its core
The poet is a nomad evermore,
The man tormented by the ceaseless thirst
Of draining all sensations, being first
Throughout unknown infinity, still changing
Both soul and scene, and further, further ranging,
Seeking an anodyne for fever-stress,
And the last lurking-place of happiness!

translated by Jethro Bithell