THIS?

	What?…
			- Shakespeare

Essays? —Now then, I’ve never essayed!
A study? —Lazily I’ve never forayed.
Volume? —Too brocaded to be well relayed.
Copy? —Alas no, this isn’t paid!

A poem? —Thank you, but I’ve pawned my lyre.
A book? —A book too, how would that transpire?
Papers? —No, no, thank God, that’s clear as the day!
Album? —This isn’t plain, and it’s ever too frayed.

Rhymed ends? —To what end? …And this isn’t kind!
A work? —It isn’t polite nor is it refined.
Songs? —How I’d like to, oh my little Muse!
Pastime? —And so you think me amused?

—Verses? …you’ve varnished the vermin… —No, that’s jerky.
—Oh, so you’ve chased after Originality?
—No, sh’s a rather silly silliness,—off the avenues—
Which flees ever more, as soon as she feels pursued.

—Pure chic? —And who would teach me its dealings!
—High flight? Falling sickness? —I’ve neither rales nor wings!
—Something to put at the door —…Or at a bordello
—Or a house of correction? —Oh, but no!

—Alright, it’s not classical? —Barely is it French!
—Amateur? —Do I look to you like a man of achievements?
Is it old? —It doesn’t have forty years of service…
Is it young? —With age, one heals from that vice.

…THIS, it’s naively an impudent pose;
This is, or isn’t thither: nothing, or who knows…
—A masterpiece? —It’s possible: I haven’t made one yet.
—But is it a Huron, a Gagne, or a Musset?

—It’s a… but there I’ve put the name of this humble author,
And neither does my child have a title to be a liar.
It’s a stroke of luck, right or wrong, all by hazard…
Art doesn’t know me. I don’t know Art.

			The police prefecture, 20 May 1873