Charles Baudelaire-To the reader
| Baudelaire, Charles "To the reader" |
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Folly, error, sin and parsimony Preoccupy our spirits and work on our bodies Feeding our consciences Like beggars nourishing their lice. Our sins are stubborn, our repentance weak We make ourselves pay handsomely for each confession And happily rejoin the muddy path Believing our base tears can wash away the stains. On the pillow of evil, Satan Trismegistus Cradles at length our enchanted soul And the rich metal of our will Is boiled away by that artful chemist. It is the Devil who holds the threads that move us! It is in hateful objects that we find peace; Each day, one step further towards Hell Without horror, through the stinking shadows. Like a poor sinner who kisses and consumes The tortured breast of an ancient whore, We steal in passing a clandestine joy We squeeze as strongly as a withered fruit. Serried, seething, like a million ants In our brains riots a Demon horde And, when we breathe, Death in our lungs Descends, a sightless river, with deaf moans. If rape and poison, arson and the knife Have not yet woven their pleasant designs On the dull canvas of our lowly destinies It is because our soul, alas, is not yet bold enough! But among the jackals, panthers and chimerae The monkeys, scorpions, vultures and the snakes The monsters yelping, shouting, grunting, crawling In the ill-famed menagerie of all our vices Is one more ugly, evil, fouler than the rest Making no grand gestures or great cries Yet it would gladly lay waste to the earth And with a yawn would swallow up the world And it is Boredom! Eye laden with involuntary tears, Dreaming of scaffolds, pulls upon its pipe You know it, reader, this delicate monster - Hypocrite reader, - my likeness, - my brother! |
