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Published on by Editorial Staff

 “Lives” by Arthur Rimbaud

Rimbaud’s “Lives” (Schmidt translation) feels deeply poignant watching what’s happening in the world. The line “What have they done with the Brahman who taught me the Proverbs?” strips Romantic notions of religion for a reality of war. “My wisdom is as much ignored as chaos…what is my nonbeing…” humbles us to invisibility. Then humbles even that. “I attempt to awaken my feelings in the memory of a wandering childhood” as we stumble to find some footing. To no avail, “skepticism can no longer be put to work.” The poem ends with a shattering sense of distance: we “can do nothing for you.”
– J. H. Danville

One translation of the poem, however, not Schmidt’s: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55037/lives