The Lice Hunters (tr. Rimbaud)

When, in its capacity for feverish perturbations,
’Plores the infant’s front the blotless wing
Of blurry dreams, then approach his couch
Two great sisters and charming
-- Whose fingers are frail --
With argent nails.

They prop the infant by a window
Slat, largely open, where the air’s
Blue bathes a flowers’ flurry, and among
His heavy scalp where oil fell
Their terrible, fine, and charming fingers
Promenade.

He hears their blackened lashes flicker
Below the silence of perfume;
Their delicate, electric fingers crack
Among the fat of indolence and under royal nails
The death of little lice.

Thus the nectar of laze clambers ’pon him,
Thus the lyric sigh that brings delirium
To his harmonica; the infant feels himself,
Upon the wings of their caress,
Abort or now conceive incessant lust for tears.