CONTEMPLATION

by: Charles Baudelaire

      HOU, O my Grief, be wise and tranquil still,
      The eve is thine which even now drops down,
      To carry peace or care to human will,
      And in a misty veil enfolds the town.
       
      While the vile mortals of the multitude,
      By pleasure, cruel tormentor, goaded on,
      Gather remorseful blossoms in light mood--
      Grief, place thy hand in mine, let us be gone
       
      Far from them. Lo, see how the vanished years,
      In robes outworn lean over heaven's rim;
      And from the water, smiling through her tears,
       
      Remorse arises, and the sun grows dim;
      And in the east, her long shroud trailing light,
      List, O my grief, the gentle steps of Night.

'Contemplation' is reprinted from The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire. Ed. James Huneker. New York: Brentano's, 1919.

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