THE REMORSE OF THE DEAD
by: Charles Baudelaire
- SHADOWY
Beauty mine, when thou shalt sleep
- In the deep heart of a black marble tomb;
- When thou for mansion and for bower shalt keep
- Only one rainy cave of hollow gloom;
-
- And when the stone upon thy trembling breast,
- And on thy straight sweet body's supple grace,
- Crushes thy will and keeps thy heart at rest,
- And holds those feet from their adventurous race;
-
- Then the deep grave, who shares my reverie,
- (For the deep grave is aye the poet's friend)
- During long nights when sleep is far from thee,
-
- Shall whisper: "Ah, thou didst not comprehend
- The dead wept thus, thou woman frail and weak"--
- And like remorse the worm shall gnaw thy cheek.
'The Remorse of the Dead' is reprinted
from The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire.
Ed. James Huneker. New York: Brentano's, 1919. |
MORE POEMS BY CHARLES BAUDELAIRE |
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