Charles Baudelaire, translated by John Collings Squire

“ SPLEEN
When the low heavy sky weighs like a lid
Upon the spirit aching for the light,
And all the wide horizon’s line is hid
By a black day sadder than any night;
When the changed earth is but a dungeon dank
Where batlike Hope goes blindly fluttering
And, striking wall and roof and mouldered plank,
Bruises his tender head and timid wing ”

“ Your clear eye flashing with precocity,
You have displayed yourself proud architect
Of fabrics so audaciously correct
That we may guess what your ripe prime will be.
Poet, our blood ebbs out through every pore ”

“ Two plots of hard volcanic soil.
And if he would from out them wrench
A few thorns or a meagre flower,
Continually a heavy shower
Of his salt sweat their roots must drench.
The one is Art, the other Love ”