Three years I lolled in that country of the girls,

Thick with their wine, their loose idolatry,

Nor saw that I was only prince of gulls,

Nor heard the ambiguous whisper of the sea.

Used … used! Eating their morphine leaf,

I breathed a cloud of self-congratulations

To pillow me, while my boat slapped on the wharf

And twenty spiders scribbled invitations.

All right, my bully-boys, you who connived

My fall, I thank you for your dirty part,

I kiss you for each lie you took to wife

And for that salt you packed around my heart.

Goodbye, old things, I am forever lost!

My crazy vessel dances to the rail,

Sea-drunken since I left that barbarous coast,

The stain of anger spreading on my sail.