Get drunk, as you please.

Get drunk
by Charles Baudelaire

One should always be drunk. That’s the great thing;
the only question. So as not to feel the horrible burden
of Time weighing on your shoulders and bowing
you to the earth,
you should be drunk without cease.

But with what?
With wine, poetry, or virtue
as you please.
But get drunk.

And if, at some time, you happen to wake
on the steps of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dreary solitude of your own room,
and find that your drunkenness is ebbing or has vanished,
ask the wind, the wave, the stars, 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 stars, the birds, and the clock,
they will all reply:

"It is time to get drunk.

So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time,
be perpetually drunk,
and never pause for rest.
With wine, poetry, or virtue,
as you please."