Since it's introduction through to today absinthe has been the focal point of many artforms. From affectionate ode's to propoganda portraying absinthe as the downfall of a society. Here is a selection of our favourites.
 Charles Cros was a French poet, inventor and big-time absinthe drinker. The following poem is his best-known on the subject of the green fairy.
With Flowers and With Women With Flowers, and with Women,
With Absinthe, and with this Fire,
We can divert ourselves a while,
Act out our part in some drama. Absinthe, on a winter evening,
Lights up in green the sooty soul;
And Flowers, on the beloved,
Grow fragrant before the clear Fire. Later, kisses lose their charm
Having lasted several seasons;
And after mutual betrayals
We part one day without a tear. We burn letters and bouquets.
And fire takes our bower;
And if sad life is salvaged
Still there is Absinthe and its hiccups.. The portraits are eaten by flames..
Shrivelled fingers tremble..
We die from sleeping long
With Flowers, and with Women. Absinthe is Death!
An anti-absinthe song written by the members of a 19th century Temperance league
I am the Green Fairy
My robe is the colour of despair
I have nothing in common with the fairies of the past
What I need is blood, red and hot, the palpitating flesh of my victims
Alone, I will kill France, the Present is dead, Vive the future.
But me, I kill the future and in the family I destroy the love of country, courage, honor,
I am the purveyor of hell, penitentiaries, hospitals.
Who am I finally? I am the instigator of crime
I am ruin and sorrow
I am shame
I am dishonour
I am death
I am absinthe  Ernest Dowson was the English poet who coined the phrase "Absinthe makes the tart grow fonder". He wrote the following absinthe-inspired poem, Absinthia Taetra, while on a trip to Paris.
Absinthia Taetra Green changed to white, emerald to opal; nothing was changed.
The man let the water trickle gently into his glass, and as the green clouded, a mist fell from his mind.
Then he drank opaline. Memories and terrors beset him. The past tore after him like a panther and through the blackness of the present he saw the luminous tiger eyes of the things to be.
But he drank opaline. And that obscure night of the soul, and the valley of humiliation, through which he stumbled, were forgotten. He saw blue vistas of undiscovered countries, high prospects and a quiet, caressing sea. The past shed its perfume over him, to-day held his hand as if it were a little child, and to-morrow shone like a white star: nothing was changed.
He drank opaline. The man had known the obscure night of the soul, and lay even now in the valley of humiliation; and the tiger menace of the things to be was red in the skies. But for a little while he had forgotten.
Green changed to white, emerald to opal; nothing was changed. |
