8 Odelettes by Gerard de Nerval (1808-1854)


Lords and Flunkeys

Those long-gone lords out of novels,
Those big beefheads, things out of Dante,
With giant bone-house bodies
That could have come rootstocking out of the earth -

If they came back to the world, and decided
To inspect the heirs of their Deathless Names,
That tribe of Laridons that clutter the Cabinet
Villas, grovelling, greedy and cheap;

Spindly, corseted things, stuffed shirt-fronts, fake pad-legs -
Surely these lords would know that, since
long-agone their girlies had souped
flunkey blood with the lordy kind.


Waking Up in a Carriage

Here's what I saw - trees jumble-scramming
...