Monologue

A poem by Charles Baudelaire

You are a lovely autumn sky, rose-clear!
But sadness is flowing in me like the sea,
And leaves on my sullen lip, as it disappears,
of its bitter slime the painful memory.


Your hand glides over my numb breast in vain:
what it seeks, dear friend, is a place made raw
by woman’s ferocious fang and claw, refrain:
seek this heart, the wild beasts tear, no more.


My heart is a palace defiled by the rabble,
they drink, and murder, and clutch each other’s hair!
About your naked throat a perfume hovers!...


O Beauty, harsh scourge of souls, this is your care!
With your eyes of fire, dazzling as at our feasts,
Burn these scraps to ashes, spared by the beasts!