Arthur Rimbaud, Illuminations

"I shed more tears than God could ever have required."

"From castles of bone unknown music comes But now, that toil rewarded; you, your calculations,––you, your fits of impatience––are no more than your dancing and your voice, not fixed and certainly not forced, although an added reason for a double consequence of inventiveness + success, ––in brotherly and discreet humanity throughout the universe devoid of images;––force and justice reflect thedancing and the voices which are only now esteemed. The voices of instruction in exile... The body’s ingenuousness bit- terly put in its place... –– Adagio –– Ah! the infinite egotism of adolescence, the studious optimism: how full of flowers the world was that summer! Tunes and forms fading... ––A choir, to calm down impotence and absence! A choir of glass pieces, of nocturnal melodies... Soon, indeed, the nerves will slip their moorings."

"True alchemy lies in this formula: ‘Your memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulse’."