One should always be drunk. That’s all that matters;
That’s our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time’s
Horrible burden that breaks your shoulders and bows
You own, you must get drunk without ceasing.
But what with? With wine, with poetry, or with
Virtue, as you choose. But get drunk.
And if, at some time, on the steps of a palace, in the
Green grass of a ditch, in the bleak solitude of your
Room, you are waking up when the drunkenness has already
Abated, ask the wind, the wave, a star, the clock, all that
Which flees, all that which groans, all that which rolls,
All that which sings, all that which speaks, ask them
What time it is; and the wind the wave, the star, the
Bird, the clock will reply: ‘It is time to get drunk! So that
You may not be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk;
Get drunk and never pause for rest! With wine, with
Poetry, or with virtue, as you choose!

Charles Baudelaire, an early to mid nineteenth century French poet, writer, and essayist wrote this poem. Baudelaire was best known for his collected works, Les Fleurs du Mal, which challenged the boundaries of risqué poetry in France in the 1850’s. His work is known for questioning the established order of the world and for being deliberately irreverent and profane by the standards of the day. His poetry also had a deeply sexual and inherently mortal tone, as he often debated heavily over the nature of rules and morality. Baudelaire, a lifelong laudanum user, died in 1867. His work would go on to influence a wave of early modern French and English writers, poets, and artists, such as Edgar Allan Poe and Edouard Manet.

This piece, done in Baudelaire’s recognizably flowing prose style, was made as a standalone poem meant to describe his state of mind and relationship with poetry. The great advantage of Baudelaire’s writing style is its ability to be spoken aloud, and this piece doesn’t break that tradition. In many ways he reflects on his life and the trappings of mortality in what sounds, at first, like a particularly coherent bar song. Time is herein personified, made the great enemy of all who hope to live and enjoy life. He overcomes the obstacles, however, by showing the reader the way to combat the invulnerable onslaught of time: getting drunk. More than just physical exuberance, however, Baudelaire is talking about exposing one’s soul to something fully, regardless of what it is, as a way of escaping. For him the slavery of time is irrevocable, it will always take from those who bend to it. The solution is to lose yourself completely in another venture. Baudelaire definitely took his own advice in this matter, he drank, wrote poetry, and debated virtue for his entire life, although he never could quite escape the idea of mortality and his great enemy Time.

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth —
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth —
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?–
If design govern in a thing so small.

In this poem, Frost stumbles upon a curious scene in his rural surroundings. He observes as a spider kills an unsuspecting moth atop a peculiar heal-all – a common flower. Uncommon however, is the color of the flower, and that of the spider and the moth. All of these are white, and importantly so. Their color separates them from the rest of the picture, the more expected greens, browns, and blues of nature. The poet highlights the elements in white that he believes to agents in this gruesome “design”. On the whole, the poem questions whether the happenings of nature are governed by an intelligent force – and whether that force is malevolent. Frost reveals what he believes, to an extent, choosing to describe the scene as “death and blight”, and “ingredients of a witches’ broth”. Moreover, his choice to use a sonnet for this poem shows that Frost chose to be governed by another’s design.

Robert Frost (1874-1963) was an American poet, both popular and critically acclaimed for his poetry describing rural life in New England, where he spent most of his life. His work uses these naturalistic settings to explore philosophy and make social commentary. Frost attended Amherst College and Harvard University, graduated from neither, and ended up receiving more than 40 honorary degrees from prestigious universities in the United States and England. When he was not writing, he taught at Middlebury College, Amherst College, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Frost won four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and in 1960 was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his work.