Deep Readings: Arthur Rimbaud – Le Dormeur du Val (1870) «

Deep Readings: Arthur Rimbaud – Le Dormeur du Val (1870)

July 1, 2025 Deep Readings No Comments

The Fragment
Original (French):
C’est un trou de verdure où chante une rivière,
Accrochant follement aux herbes des haillons
D’argent; où le soleil, de la montagne fière,
Luit: c’est un petit val qui mousse de rayons.

Un soldat jeune, bouche ouverte, tête nue,
Et la nuque baignant dans le frais cresson bleu,
Dort; il est étendu dans l’herbe, sous la nue,
Pâle dans son lit vert où la lumière pleut.

Les pieds dans les glaïeuls, il dort. Souriant comme
Sourirait un enfant malade, il fait un somme:
Nature, berce‑le chaudement: il a froid.

Les parfums ne font pas frissonner sa narine;
Il dort dans le soleil, la main sur sa poitrine
Tranquille. Il a deux trous rouges au côté droit.

English rendering (by Lisa):
It is a green hollow where a river sings,
clutching madly to the grass its silver rags;
where the proud mountain, bright with sunlight,
lets fall its rays into a foaming valley.

A young soldier, mouth open, head bare,
with neck bathed in the cool blue cress,
sleeps; he is stretched in the grass, beneath the sky,
pale in his green bed where the light rains down.

Feet among gladioli, he sleeps. Smiling as
a sick child might smile, he slumbers;
Nature, cradle him warmly: he is cold.

Scents do not stir his nostrils;
he sleeps in the sun, hand on his breast —
calm. He has two red holes in his right side.

(Public domain, 1870)

Read more → Project Gutenberg

Contextual Glimpse
Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891), the teenage prodigy of French poetry, wrote Le Dormeur du val in 1870 during the Franco‑Prussian War. Only 16 years old, he crafted a vision at once pastoral and brutal. The poem begins in lush description: a sunlit valley, sparkling water, flowers, a young man at rest. Only at the end do we realize the truth — the soldier is dead, with “two red holes in his right side.”

Rimbaud’s genius lies in the contrast. He juxtaposes nature’s serenity with war’s violence, beauty with horror. The soldier is not depicted in battle but in eternal sleep, as if absorbed back into the earth. The poem is not political speech, but its tenderness is an indictment of war’s cruelty.

Resonance
The fragment resonates through its deceptive gentleness. The pastoral opening lulls us into calm before the shocking final line breaks the illusion. The soldier is not resting but gone; his smile is not peace but the stillness of death. Rimbaud forces us to confront how war invades even the most beautiful places.

This resonates because we, too, live in a world where violence shatters beauty, where young lives are cut short before their promise can bloom. The poem asks us to see not statistics but the fragile humanity of each fallen soldier. It shows us how war disfigures even nature’s song.

Why this may also be about you
This poem is not only about a soldier in the Franco‑Prussian war. It may also speak to your own awareness of fragility: how beauty and vulnerability coexist. You, too, have known moments when peace felt shadowed by violence, or when joy was pierced by sudden loss.

Perhaps you have felt the tension of living in a world where cruelty and beauty lie side by side. The poem reminds you that grief is not separate from life’s beauty; they are intertwined, inseparable. In recognizing this, you deepen your own humanity.

Lisa’s inspired, original idea about this fragment
Perhaps the soldier is also a symbol of innocence within us. Like him, our inner youth sometimes lies still, silenced by harshness or disappointment. To see him cradled by nature is to realize that what is wounded in us still belongs to life, still rests within the earth’s embrace.

The “two red holes” may be literal, but they also stand for the marks left by suffering. Each of us carries wounds that cannot be erased. Yet by naming them, as Rimbaud does, we honor their truth and give them dignity. Poetry transforms even horror into a space of recognition.

Echoes
Le Dormeur du val has echoed through literature, education, and memory as one of Rimbaud’s most famous poems. It is recited in French schools as both a lesson in poetry and in history — showing the cost of war through beauty rather than rhetoric. Its closing line remains one of the most haunting in French verse.

Beyond France, the poem has influenced countless anti‑war writers and artists. Its echo continues wherever young lives are lost to violence, reminding us of the enduring need to see the human, not just the soldier. The image of the sleeping youth still reverberates: a universal elegy.

Inner Invitation
Close your eyes and imagine a valley filled with sunlight, a river singing, flowers blooming. See a young man lying in the grass, at first peaceful, then realize he does not stir. Let yourself feel the tenderness and the grief together.

Now ask yourself: what in me is like this soldier — innocent, vulnerable, silenced? Can I cradle that part of myself gently, as nature cradles him? In this moment of recognition, let sorrow and beauty sit side by side in your heart.

Closing Note
Rimbaud shows us that war’s cruelty is not abstract, but intimate. In the stillness of a sleeping soldier, he gives us the face of loss — and the fragile beauty that survives even within grief.