Translated by A. Z. Foreman - African Elegy lyrics

He sits on the platform of his factory, The yellow Congo slowly slushing by With gurgling and interminable ado. He sees through cracks in the old floor's bamboo Black trunks and crocodiles floating in the night. He muses bitterly: "Idyllic sight! It's Sunday in Europe everywhere today, In Brest, Bordeaux, on every harbor quay. Bathed in soft sunlight, every city street Is clear of carriages, in peace so sweet. Each church's choir sings with sacred calm And even folk outside can hear a psalm. At evening drunken sailors dance about With barmaids, till they bumble and pa** out... While I sit here with a bad gla** of Toddy, Six tropic years' exhaustion in my body. I haven't had the stomach in seven days For pleasure in my negro girl's embrace. She's there to appease my every appetite And sure enough she'll strangle me one night, And the Chief - her brother - feast on the white slaughter Just as she promised him the day I bought her. I now forget the word that filled her screams, Though it obsesses me in fever-dreams." He fires three pistol shots. Down drops an ape's Corpse from a tree into a grave that gapes Suddenly from the brown and muddied deep Where a crocodile slept, soon to fall back asleep. He puts on an old, grating gramophone A twostep plays: despairing monotone. From trees across the river whooshes an arrow. He hopes for d**h's Salvation in that narrow Moment, as a child seeing a shooting star Stammers a heart-swelled wish. But it is far Off. The plumed k**-dart vibrates in hard wood. Confounded steps retreat through the dark wood....