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baudelaire-get-drunkGet Drunk
One should always be drunk
That's all that matters;
That's our one imperative need.
So as not to feel Time's horrible burden
Which breaks your shoulders
And bows you down
You must get drunk without cease.
But what with?
With wine, poetry, or virtue
As you chose.
But get drunk.
And if, at some time, on the steps of a Palace
Or in the green grass of a ditch
In the bleak solitude of your room,
You are wakening
And drunkenness has already abated
Ask the wind, the wave, the stars, the clock,
All that which flees,
All that which groans,
All that which rolls,
All that which sings,
All that which speaks,
Ask them , what time it is?
And the wind, the wave, the stars, the birds, and the clock,
They will reply:
"It is time to get drunk!"
So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk, get drunk,
And never pause for rest!
With wine, poetry, or virtue,
As you choose!
Charles Baudelaire
1821-1867.
© 2015 Mutual Fund Observer. All rights reserved.
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Comments
A Frenchman espousing the virtues of inebriation - of all sorts.
I have lived my life in the proscribed manner. The literal interpretation often enhancing the symbolic one. Wine certainly enhances poetry.