Baudelaire, Charles: Episode (Causerie in English)
Causerie (French)
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Episode (English)You are a lovely, rosy, lucid autumn sky!
But sadness mounts upon me like a flooding sea, And ebbs, and ebbing, leaves my lips morose and dry, Smarting with salty ooze, bitter with memory. — Useless to slide your hand like that along my breast; That which it seeks, my dear, is plundered; it is slit By the soft paw of woman, that clawed while it caressed. Useless to hunt my heart; the beasts have eaten it. My heart is like a palace where the mob has spat; There they carouse, they seize each other's hair, they kill. — Your breast is naked... what exotic scent is that?... O Beauty, iron flail of souls, it is your will! So be it! Eyes of fire, bright in the darkness there, Bum up these strips of flesh the beasts saw fit to spare. |