Ma Bohème recited by Bachouma

I will soon try to post some verses of Villon: distanced by hundreds of years, Villon and Rimbaud were (each in his own way) totally free spirits: free from the hypocrisy of morale, free from the hypocrisy of language. As for this poem of Rimbaud, I found on youTube a great rendering by Bachouma. Just enjoy!

http://www.notforsaletothepublic.com/wordpress/2009/12/12/ma-boheme-arthur-rimbaud/

Je m’en allais, les poings dans mes poches crevées ;
Mon paletot aussi devenait idéal ;
J’allais sous le ciel, Muse ! et j’étais ton féal ;
Oh ! là là ! que d’amours splendides j’ai rêvées !
Mon unique culotte avait un large trou.
- Petit-Poucet rêveur, j’égrenais dans ma course
Des rimes. Mon auberge était à la Grande Ourse.
- Mes étoiles au ciel avaient un doux frou-frou

Et je les écoutais, assis au bord des routes,
Ces bons soirs de septembre où je sentais des gouttes
De rosée à mon front, comme un vin de vigueur ;

Où, rimant au milieu des ombres fantastiques,
Comme des lyres, je tirais les élastiques
De mes souliers blessés, un pied près de mon coeur !

par Bachouma ; Terre, France, Paris, Bibliothèque Publique d'Information
(video by VizantOr)

The English rendering of Oliver Bernard (1962):

My Bohemian Life

I went off with my hands in my torn coat pockets;
My overcoat too was becoming ideal;
I travelled beneath the sky, Muse! and I was your vassal;
Oh dear me! what marvellous loves I dreamed of!

My only pair of breeches had a big whole in them.
– Stargazing Tom Thumb, I sowed rhymes along my way.
My tavern was at the Sign of the Great Bear.
– My stars in the sky rustled softly.

And I listened to them, sitting on the road-sides
On those pleasant September evenings while I felt drops
Of dew on my forehead like vigorous wine;

And while, rhyming among the fantastical shadows,
I plucked like the strings of a lyre the elastics
Of my tattered boots, one foot close to my heart!

(Rimbaud)