Smoke
Over there, trees are sheltering
A hunchedback hut... A slum, no more...
Roof askew, walls and wainscoting
Falling away... Moss hides the door.
Only one shutter, hanging... But
Seeping over the windowsill,
Like frosted breath, proof that this hut,
This slum, is living, breathing still.
Corkscrew of smoke... A wisp of blue
Escapes the hovel, whose soul it is...
Rises to God himself, and who
Receives the news and makes it his.
Copyright Credit: Théophile Gautier, “Smoke” from Selected Lyrics, translated by Norman R. Shapiro. Copyright © 2011 by Norman R. Shapiro. Reprinted by permission of Yale University Press.
Source: Selected Lyrics (Yale University Press, 2011)