The albatross

Often, to amuse themselves, the crewmen

Would catch albatrosses, huge birds of the seas,

Which would follow, lazy voyage companions,

The ship gliding over the briny chasms.

Hardly had they settled on the deck,

Then these kings of the skies, clumsy and ashamed,

Would let trail piteously their great white wings

Like oars beside them.

[This winged traveller, how awkward and weak he is!

He, quite recently so beautiful, how comic and ugly he is!

One annoys his beak with a short-stemmed pipe,

Another mimics, teasingly, the disabled one who used to fly!]

The Poet resembles the prince of the clouds

Who haunts the storm and laughs at the archer;

Exiled on Earth in the midst of the booing audience,

His giant's wings prevent him from walking.