On the black gallows, one-armed friend
The paladins are dancing, dancing
The lean, the devil's paladins
The skeletons of Saladins
Sir Beelzebub pulls by the scruff
His little black puppets who grin at the sky
And with a backhander in the head like a kick
Makes them dance, dance, to an old Carol-tune!
And the puppets, shaken about, entwine their thin arms:
Their breasts pierced with light, like black organ-pipes
Which once gentle ladies pressed to their own
Jostle together protractedly in hideous love-making
Hurray! the gay dancers, you whose bellies are gone!
You can cut capers on such a long stage!
Hop! never mind whether it's fighting or dancing!
- Beelzebub, maddened, saws on his fiddles!
Oh the hard heels, no one's pumps are wearing out!
And nearly all have taken of their shirts of skin;
The rest is not embarrassing and can be seen without shame
On each skull the snow places a white hat:
The crow acts as a plume for these cracked brains
A scrap of flesh clings to each lean chin:
You would say, to see them turning in their dark combats
They were stiff knights clashing pasteboard armours
Hurrah! the wind whistles at the skeletons' grand ball!
The black gallows moans like an organ of iron !
The wolves howl back from the violet forests:
And on the horizon the sky is hell-red...
Ho there, shake up those funereal braggarts
Craftily telling with their great broken fingers
The beads of their loves on their pale vertebrae:
Hey the departed, this is no monastery here!
Oh! but see how from the middle of this Dance of Death
Springs into the red sky a great skeleton, mad
Carried away by his own impetus, like a rearing horse:
And, feeling the rope tight again round his neck
Clenches his knuckles on his thighbone with a crack
Uttering cries like mocking laughter
And then like a mountebank into his booth
Skips back into the dance to the music of the bones!
On the black gallows, one-armed friend
The paladins are dancing, dancing
The lean, the devil's paladins
The skeletons of Saladins
The paladins are dancing, dancing
The lean, the devil's paladins
The skeletons of Saladins
Sir Beelzebub pulls by the scruff
His little black puppets who grin at the sky
And with a backhander in the head like a kick
Makes them dance, dance, to an old Carol-tune!
And the puppets, shaken about, entwine their thin arms:
Their breasts pierced with light, like black organ-pipes
Which once gentle ladies pressed to their own
Jostle together protractedly in hideous love-making
Hurray! the gay dancers, you whose bellies are gone!
You can cut capers on such a long stage!
Hop! never mind whether it's fighting or dancing!
- Beelzebub, maddened, saws on his fiddles!
Oh the hard heels, no one's pumps are wearing out!
And nearly all have taken of their shirts of skin;
The rest is not embarrassing and can be seen without shame
On each skull the snow places a white hat:
The crow acts as a plume for these cracked brains
A scrap of flesh clings to each lean chin:
You would say, to see them turning in their dark combats
They were stiff knights clashing pasteboard armours
Hurrah! the wind whistles at the skeletons' grand ball!
The black gallows moans like an organ of iron !
The wolves howl back from the violet forests:
And on the horizon the sky is hell-red...
Ho there, shake up those funereal braggarts
Craftily telling with their great broken fingers
The beads of their loves on their pale vertebrae:
Hey the departed, this is no monastery here!
Oh! but see how from the middle of this Dance of Death
Springs into the red sky a great skeleton, mad
Carried away by his own impetus, like a rearing horse:
And, feeling the rope tight again round his neck
Clenches his knuckles on his thighbone with a crack
Uttering cries like mocking laughter
And then like a mountebank into his booth
Skips back into the dance to the music of the bones!
On the black gallows, one-armed friend
The paladins are dancing, dancing
The lean, the devil's paladins
The skeletons of Saladins
( Arthur Rimbaud )
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