“One evening I sat Beauty on my knees – And I found her bitter – And I reviled her.”

“I found I could extinguish all human hope from my soul.”

“But, truly, I have wept too much! The Dawns are heartbreaking. Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter.”

“On the blue summer evenings, I will go along the paths,And walk over the short grass, as I am pricked by the wheat:Daydreaming I will feel the coolness on my feet.I will let the wind bathe my bare head. I will not speak,I will have no thoughts: But infinite love will mount in my soul;And I will go far, far off, like a gypsy,through the countryside - as happy as if I were with a woman. "Sensation”

“Here I am on the shore of Brittany. Let the cities light up in the evening. My day is done. I am leaving Europe. The sea air will burn my lungs. Lost climates will tan me. I will swim, trample the grass, hung, and smoke especially. I will drink alcohol as strong as boiling metal--just as my dear ancestors did around their fires.”

“Evening prayerI spend my life sitting, like an angel in a barber's chair,Holding a beer mug with deep-cut designs,My neck and gut both bent, while in the airA weightless veil of pipe smoke hangs.Like steaming dung within an old dovecoteA thousand Dreams within me softly burn:From time to time my heart is like some oakWhose blood runs golden where a branch is torn.And then, when I have swallowed down my DreamsIn thirty, forty mugs of beer, I turnTo satisfy a need I can't ignore,And like the Lord of Hyssop and of MyrrhI piss into the skies, a soaring streamThat consecrates a patch of flowering fern.”

“Now I am an outcast. I loathe my country. The best thing for me is a drunken sleep on the beach.”