My Bohemian Existence


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 hole in them. -- Stragazing Tom Thumb, I sowed my rhymes along the 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 the strings of a lyre the elastics of my tattered boots, one foot close to my heart!