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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