Observations placeholder

Arthur Rimbaud – from Rimbaud Complete [translated by Wyatt Mason]

Golden dawn and shivering night find our brig along the coast of this villa and its grounds that form a promontory as vast as Epirus and the Peloponnesus or the great islands of Japan or Arabia. 

Temples illuminated by the return of processions; sweeping views of coastal fortifications; dunes inscribed with the hot flowers of bacchanal; Carthaginian canals and embankments of a degenerate Venice; faint eruptions of Etnas, crevasses of flowers and glacial waters, washhouses settled in stands of German poplars; strange parks, hillsides hung with the heads of Japanese trees, and circular facades of Scarborough or Brooklyn, the ‘Royal’ or the ‘Grand’;  their railways flank, plumb, and overhang a Hotel plucked from the history of the biggest, most ornate buildings in Italy, America, and Asia, whose windows and terraces are now brimming with lights, drinks, and heavy breezes, are wide open to souls of travellers and nobles alike – who permit, by day, the varied tarantellas of the shores – and even the ritornellos of art’s storied valleys, to miraculously decorate the promontory Palace facades