Rimbaud

The nights, the railway-arches, the bad sky,

His horrible companions did not know it;

But in that child the rhetorician's lie

Burst like a pipe: the cold had made a poet.

Drinks bought him by his weak and lyric friend

His senses systematically deranged,

To all accustomed nonsense put an end;

Till he from lyre and weakness was estranged.

Verse was a special illness of the ear;

Integrity was not enough; that seemed

The hell of childhood: he must try again.

Now, galloping through Africa, he dreamed

Of a new self, a son, the engineer,

His truth acceptable to lying men.