
My second choice from Myrtle, Rue and Cypress (1883), Stenbock’s second collection of verses, is a poem in the spirit of carpe diem, honouring love, youth and wine. Here he joins Baudelaire, who also extolled wine and drunkenness, and indeed both authors experienced the pleasures of alcohol and drugs. As in many of Stenbock’s poems, the gender of the beloved young person is left unknown, but it was most probably a boy. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…