Translations by Eli Siegel
Happiness, By Arthur Rimbaud
O seasons, O castles,
What mind is without lack?
I have taken part in the magic study
Of happiness, a study no one can keep from.
Salute to it, each time
The French cock crows.
Ah, I want no more irritating againstness:
It has burdened my life.
That charm has taken self and body
And scatters energy.
O seasons, O castles.
The hour of flight, alas,
Will be the hour of surrender in death.
O seasons, O castles.
From Hail, American Development (Definition Press)
© 1968 by Eli Siegel
Eli Siegel’s note to the poem:
Happiness, By Arthur Rimbaud. 1958. It is good to have Rimbaud tell us that the going after happiness is as inevitable for a person as being affected by gravity is for a solid object. The light and the heavy are in seasons and castles, time and edifices. And Rimbaud tells us happiness is a magic study, but we have to give ourselves to it. — As a cock in France crows, you can hail energy in any living being concerned with happiness. Something in us can, irritatingly to self, use self-importance against happiness; but this is a burden. Self-importance can seem to be a charm, but it scatters the energy of self and body. — Again, we must put together the non-weighing seasons and the weighing castles — though both seasons and castles have shape of a kind.—When one definitely goes away from happiness — the hour of flight — death will be yielded to. — Therefore, again, O seasons — O time as visible; and O castles — O weight as white and distant.