Le Crépuscule du soir

Here is the charming evening, friend of the criminal;

It comes like an accomplice, on wolf's feet; the sky

Closes slowly like a great alcove,

And impatient man changes into a wild beast.

Whose arms, without lying, can say: Today

We have worked! — It is the evening that soothes

The minds that a savage sorrow devours,

The stubborn scholar whose brow grows heavy,

And the bent workman who regains his bed.

Meanwhile unwholesome demons in the atmosphere

Wake heavily, like men of business,

And knock as they fly against the shutters and the awning.

Through the glimmers that the wind torments

Prostitution lights up in the streets;

Like an anthill it opens its outlets;

Everywhere it cuts itself a hidden path,

Just like the enemy who attempts a surprise raid;

It stirs in the heart of the city of mire

Like a worm that steals from Man what he eats.

Here and there one hears the kitchens hissing,

The theaters yelping, the orchestras droning;

The common tables, whose delight is gambling,

Fill up with harlots and swindlers, their accomplices,

And the thieves, who have neither truce nor mercy,

Will soon begin their work, they too,

And gently force the doors and the strongboxes

To live a few days and to clothe their mistresses.

And close your ear to this roaring.

It is the hour when the sufferings of the sick grow sharper!

Dark Night takes them by the throat; they finish

Their destiny and go toward the common gulf;

The hospital fills with their sighs. — More than one

Will no longer come to seek the fragrant soup,

By the fireside, in the evening, beside a beloved soul.

The sweetness of home and have never lived!