Arthur Rimbaud: "Night of Hell" (1873)

I have swallowed a fabulous draft of poison! Three times I sought the councils of the wise! My guts are burning! The violent venom contorted my members, stretched me, and I was thrown to the floor of the terrace! I am thirsty, my breath stifled;--I cannot cry out! It's sheer Hell, eternal pain! You see the flames? How they RISE! --I burn for my transgressions! Onward, demon!

I had witnessed a conversion of the good and pleasurable with salvation.--Can I describe such a conversion? The hot wind of Hell suffers no hymns. I saw there millions of charming creatures, the sweet spiritual choir; strength, peace.--Noble ambitions.--Of what do I know of THAT?

The noble ambitions!

It is the last moments of life!--It is eternal damnation!--The self-mutilating man is damned, is he not? I believe in hell, therefore in Hell I roast. There I am. It is the execution of the catechism. Of my baptism, I remain a slave. Mother, Father, you have authored my tragic circumstances as much as your own! Innocent want! Hell cannot hurt heathens!--It is the end of life! Slowly, the delights of my damnation shall become more penetrating.--Quickly, a vice! so that I may be entombed as worthless, per the law of human kind.

Stop up your gob! Just, shut up, already! It is reproach, shame here! Satan, who says that flames are ignoble, that my anger is dreadfully stupid.--Enough!

The errors leave me breathless: prestidigitation, phony rosewater, and insipid melodies.--To make statements that the Truth is what I hold, that I see justice; I have sound but frozen judgement; what I await is perfection.

Pride--the skin of my head is desiccated, Lord! Have pity on me, for I thirst! I thirst!

Ah! The childhood, the grass! The rain as the lake rippled upon the rock. The light of the moon illuminating the bell tower as midnight strikes. Thus chimes the hour when the Devil is at the tower's steeple. Maria! St. Holy Virgin Mother of God, the horror of my idiocy!

La Bas! In Hell, are they all not honest souls and well-wishers?

Come! I've placed a pillow on my mouth, so those ghosts can't touch me. (Anyway, no one ever thinks of others.)

No! Don't come near. To approach a man reeking of Hellfire and sulfur is folly. That's for certain.

Myriad are the illusions that pass before mine eyes, hallucinations innumerable. It is good what I have had always: More faith in the past, forgetting the principles. I will be silent; poets and visionaries would envy me. I am a thousand times richer; but as the sea is stingy, so am I.

Oh that!

The clock of life has stopped ticking. No longer am I part of this damned world. This is the gravest of all theologies. Hell is certainly below us.--and the sky rears above, slumbering in a nest of flames.

Mischievous minds in the countryside blossom; Satan, Ferdinand, holds court with the untamed seed; Jesus dances on purple thorns; light as air, they do not bend. Jesus marches forward on roiling waves. --Pale skin and hair so brown, the magic lantern revealed him standing on an ocean of emerald.

Through me every mystery shall be revealed! I will unveil the secrets of religion, birth, death, tomorrow, yesterday; cosmic nothingness. Masterfully I'll conduct a phantasmagoric symphony.

Hark!

Within me all talents lie!--There is an absence here, yet still a presence! I refuse to waste my treasure, my dear one! --Do you want darkie music? Do you fancy Houri dances? Shall I, headlong, plunge into the sea, to search for the ring? I'll transmute lead into nostrums and gold.

Come unto me: my good faith comforts, guides, heals. Where I lead, you follow, --even the suckling babes.--I will pour out my heart for you, consoling you--my heart of marvels. Poor paupers, impoverished proles! It is not to you from whom prayers I demand! Truly trust me, and ONLY ME, and when I go shall be most pleased.

And when you think of me, what, pray tell, are your thoughts? None of this makes me much miss the world. I am simply fortunate my suffering has ceased. My life was a candy-coated disaster, most regrettably!

Bah! I'll make every monstrous face you can conceive.

For my anger I deserve to burn--for my pride, there must be a special Hell.--A Hell for my tender touches--in unison they play a symphony of Hells.

Dying a sluggard's death, it is the grave to which I go; worm food--horror upon horror is heaped! Satan, thou jester! You seek to destroy me with your glamour! Alright then!--Do come on! Hot tongue of fire! A jab of your bifid barb!

Ah! To rise from the dust of my grave, my eyes feasting on deformity.

And that poison! To kiss a thousand damned!--my feebleness the cruelty of the world!

Have pity on me, oh Lord! Conceal me, for I cannot survive!

I am hidden,--yet, naked before all!

My soul ascends, burning inside!