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Jacques DELILLE ! (1738-1813)
Coffee
There is a liqueur, with a more expensive poet,
Which Virgil missed, and which Voltaire adored;
It is you, divine coffee, whose kind liqueur
Without altering the head opens up the heart.
Also, when my palate is dulled by age,
I gladly taste your drink.
That I love preparing your precious nectar!
No one is usurping this delicious care in my house.
On the stove burning only me turning your seed,
To the gold of your color make ebony succeed;
Only I against the walnut, that arm its iron teeth,
I make, by crushing it, shout your bitter fruit,
Charmed of your perfume, it is only I who in the wave
Infuses to my home your fertile dust;
Who, in Turn calming, exciting your broths,
Sums with an attentive eye your light vortices.
Finally, from your liquor slowly rested,
In the smoking vase the lees is deposited;
My cup, your nectar, the American honey,
That of the juice of the reeds expressed the African,
Everything is ready: from Japan the enamel receives your waves,
And only you gather the tributes of the two worlds.
Come therefore, divine nectar, come therefore, inspire me.
All I want is a desert, you and my Antigone.
As soon as I have felt your fragrant vapor,
suddenly from your climate the penetrating
heat awakens all my senses; without disturbance, without chaos,
My more numerous thoughts come running with great waves.
My idea was sad, arid, bare;
she laughs, she comes out richly dressed,
And I think, from the genius experiencing awakening,
Drink in every drop a ray of the sun.
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