Gypsies Travelling
By Charles Baudelaire
That tribe of prophets with the burning eyes
Is on the road, their babies on their backs,
Who satisfy their appetite attacks
With treasured breasts that always hang nearby.
On foot, with weapons shining, go the men
Beside the carts in which their people lie,
With sorrow-laden eyes searching the sky,
Yearning for vanished chimeras again.
The cricket, as he sees them pass along,
Deep in his lair redoubles his shrill song;
Cybele, their friend, augments her greenery,
Turns rocks to springs, brings flowers from the sand
Before these sojourners, empowered to see
Their future darkness, that familiar land.