Roulette
JF-Expert Member
- Dec 15, 2010
- 5,568
- 5,386
when low skies weightier than a coffin-lid
cast on the moaning soul their weary blight,
and from the whole horizon's murky grid
its grey light drips more dismal than the night;
when earth's a dungeon damp whose chill appals,
in which - a fluttering bat - my Hope, alone
buffets with timid wing the mouldering walls
and beats her head against the dome of stone;
when close as prison-bars, from overhead,
the clouds let fall the curtain of the rains,
and voiceless hordes of spiders come, to spread
their infamous cobwebs through our darkened brains,
explosively the bells begin to ring,
hurling their frightful clangour toward the sky,
as homeless spirits lost and wandering
might raise their indefatigable cry;
and ancient hearses through my soul advance
muffled and slow; my Hope, now pitiful,
weeps her defeat, and conquering Anguish plants
his great black banner on my cowering skull.
- Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal
English translation by Lewis Piaget Shanks, Flowers of Evil
Painting: Anguish by Archan Nair
cast on the moaning soul their weary blight,
and from the whole horizon's murky grid
its grey light drips more dismal than the night;
when earth's a dungeon damp whose chill appals,
in which - a fluttering bat - my Hope, alone
buffets with timid wing the mouldering walls
and beats her head against the dome of stone;
when close as prison-bars, from overhead,
the clouds let fall the curtain of the rains,
and voiceless hordes of spiders come, to spread
their infamous cobwebs through our darkened brains,
explosively the bells begin to ring,
hurling their frightful clangour toward the sky,
as homeless spirits lost and wandering
might raise their indefatigable cry;
and ancient hearses through my soul advance
muffled and slow; my Hope, now pitiful,
weeps her defeat, and conquering Anguish plants
his great black banner on my cowering skull.
- Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal
English translation by Lewis Piaget Shanks, Flowers of Evil
Painting: Anguish by Archan Nair