spleen

when the low, heavy sky weighs like a lid
on the groaning spirit, victim of long ennui,
and from the all-encircling horizon
spreads over us a day gloomier than the night;

when the earth is changed into a humid dungeon,
in which hope like a bat
goes beating the walls with her timid wings
and knocking her head against the rotten ceiling;

when the rain stretching out its endless train
imitates the bars of a vast prison
and a silent horde of loathsome spiders
comes to spin their webs in the depths of our brains,

all at once the bells leap with rage
and hurl a frightful roar at heaven,
even as wandering spirits with no country
burst into a stubborn, whimpering cry.

— and without drums or music, long hearses
pass by slowly in my soul; hope, vanquished,
weeps, and atrocious, despotic anguish
on my bowed skull plants her black flag.


- charles baudelaire, translated by william aggeler