Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LICE SEEKERS, by ARTHUR RIMBAUD


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THE LICE SEEKERS, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: When the child's forehead full of red torments
Last Line: Spring up and die unceasingly a wish to cry.
Subject(s): Lice


When the child's forehead full of red torments
Begs for the white swarm of indistinct dreams
There come close to his bed two big charming sisters
With frail fingers and silver nails.

They seat the child next to a window
Wide open, where blue air bathes a confusion of flowers
And in his heavy hair where the dew falls
Promenade their delicate fingers, terrible and enchanting.

He hears the singing of their timorous breath
Which bears the scent of long vegetable and rosy honeys
And which a whistling interrupts now and then, salivas
Taken back from the lip or desires for kisses.

He hears their black eyelashes beating beneath perfumed
Silences; and their fingers electric and sweet
Make crackle among his hazy indolences
Beneath their royal fingernails the death of little lice.

Now there is mounting in him the wine of Laziness,
Harmonica's sigh which could be delirious;
The child feels, according to the slowness of the caresses,
Spring up and die unceasingly a wish to cry.





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