Dear Chloe,
Here is my latest favorite poem. I cannot tell you, in fact, which is my favorite one. I love too many. But the one I am enclosing in this note to you is my latest love.
Dustin Hoffman gave it to me. I don’t know who wrote it. He was going to read it at an AIDS benefit. I am worried about sending you a poem which begs people to “Always be drunk,” but note the last verse: “Go get yourselves drunk and don’t stop. With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, with whatever works best.” Please be drunk with virtue or poetry!!!! Forget wine!!! This is meant to be a poem to encourage passion. My recommendation is to have passion — but not wine. On this point I have to disagree with the writer — so be good!
Have a good summer and thanks.
From Le Spleen de Paris
XXXIII
GET YOURSELF DRUNK
Always be drunk. That’s all there is to it: nothing else matters. If you don’t want to feel the horrible burden of Time crushing your shoulders and forcing you down, you have to get yourself drunk and not stop.
Drunk with what? With wine, with poetry, with virtue, with whatever works best. Just get yourself drunk.
And if you ever wake up on the front steps of some palace, on the green grass of some ditch, in the lonely gloom of your room, and find that inebriation has faded or disappeared, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, anything that flees, anything that moans, anything that moves, anything that sings, anything that speaks — ask what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, will answer: “Time to get yourselves drunk! If you don’t want to be the martyred slaves of Time, go get yourselves drunk, get yourselves drunk and don’t stop. With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, with whatever works best.”
— Charles Baudelaire
