Dead Poets and Dark Caves

Le globe lumineux et frêle
Prend un grand essor,
Crève et crache son âme grêle
Comme un songe d'or.


J'entends le crâne à chaque bulle
Prier et gémir:—
«Ce jeu féroce et ridicule,
Quand doit-il finir?

Car ce que ta bouche cruelle

Eparpille en l'air,

Monstre assassin, c'est ma cervelle,

Mon sang et ma chair!»

Et maintenant dans l'anglais pour mes amis qui ne lisent pas Français!






Cupid and the Skull
by Charles Baudelaire and translated by William Aggeler




An Old Lamp Base

Cupid is seated on the skull
Of Humanity;
On this throne the impious one
With the shameless laugh

Is gaily blowing round bubbles
That rise in the air
As if they would rejoin the globes
At the ether's end.

The sphere, fragile and luminous,
Takes flight rapidly,
Bursts and spits out its flimsy soul
Like a golden dream.

I hear the skull groan and entreat
At every bubble:
"When is this fierce, ludicrous game
To come to an end?

Because what your pitiless mouth
Scatters in the air,
Monstrous murderer — is my brain,
My flesh and my blood!"




"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare