The Flowers of Evil

O last of Autumn and Winter—steeped in haze,
O sleepy seasons! you I love and praise,
Because around my heart and brain you twine
A misty winding-sheet and a nebulous shrine.

This heavy burden to uplift,
O Sysiphus, thy pluck is required!
And even though the heart aspired,
Art is long and Time is swift.

Afar from sepulchres renowned,
To a graveyard, quite apart,
Like a broken drum, my heart,
Beats the funeral marches' sound.

Many a buried jewel sleeps
In the long-forgotten deeps,
Far from mattock and from sound;

Many a flower wafts aloft
Its perfumes, like a secret soft,
Within the solitudes, profound.

Oh blest be thou, Almighty who bestowest pain,
Like some divine redress for our infirmities,
And like the most refreshing and the purest rain,
To sanctify the strong, for saintly ecstasies."

And like a youngling bird that trembles in its nest,
I'll pluck his heart right out; within its own blood drowned,
And finally to satiate my favourite beast,
I'll throw it with intense disdain upon the ground!"

Upon the cursèd tool of thy most wicked spite.

Forsooth, the branches of this wretched tree I'll wound
And rob its pestilential blossoms of their might!"

Oh cursèd be that transient night of vain desire
When I conceived my expiation in my womb!"

Ah, why did I not bear a serpent's nest entire,
Instead of bringing forth this hideous Child of Doom!