Elijah O'Donnell / Pexels

• Novel
• I. 
• No one’s serious at seventeen. 
• —On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade 
• And loud, blinding cafés are the last thing you need
• —You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade.

• Lindens smell fine on fine June nights! 
• Sometimes the air is so sweet that you close your eyes;
• The wind brings sounds—the town is near— 
• And carries scents of vineyards and beer. . .

• II.
• —Over there, framed by a branch
• You can see a little patch of dark blue
• Stung by a sinister star that fades
• With faint quiverings, so small and white. . .

• June nights! Seventeen! —Drink it in.
• Sap is champagne, it goes to your head. . .
• The mind wanders, you feel a kiss
• On your lips, quivering like a living thing. . .

• III.
• The wild heart Crusoes through a thousand novels
• —And when a young girl walks alluringly
• Through a streetlamp’s pale light, beneath the ominous shadow
• Of her father’s starched collar. . .

• Because as she passes by, boot heels tapping,
• She turns on a dime, eyes wide,
• Finding you too sweet to resist. . .
• —And cavatinas die on your lips.

• IV.
• You’re in love. Off the market till August.
• You’re in love. —Your sonnets make Her laugh.
• Your friends are gone, you’re bad news.
• —Then, one night, your beloved, writes. . .!

• That night. . .you return to the blinding cafés;
• You order beer or lemonade. . .
• —No one’s serious at seventeen
• When lindens line the promenade.

Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) was a French poet who made a remarkable contribution to literature at a remarkably young age. He began producing poems of quality from his teenage years and, after abandoning any formal education, ran away from his family to seek adventure on the open road. He stopped writing at the age of 20 and became an explorer and merchant active in Africa and the Middle East until his death at 37 from cancer. During his career as a writer, Rimbaud and fellow French poet Paul Verlain (1844-1896) engaged in a passionate and often-violent romance – Verlaine was sent to prison for wounding Rimbaud on his wrist with a shot from a pistol. Rimbaud is best known for his collection of prose poems, Illuminations (1886), and a long poem written in prose and verse, A Season in Hell (1873).