The Sick Muse

Charles Baudelaire 1821 (Paris) – 1867 (Paris)



My impoverished muse, alas! What have you for me this morning?
Your empty eyes are stocked with nocturnal visions,
In your cheek's cold and taciturn reflection,
I see insanity and horror forming.
The green succubus and the red urchin,
Have they poured you fear and love from their urns?
The nightmare of a mutinous fist that despotically turns,
Does it drown you at the bottom of a loch beyond searching?

I wish that your breast exhaled the scent of sanity,
That your womb of thought was not a tomb more frequently
And that your Christian blood flowed around a buoy that was rhythmical,

Like the numberless sounds of antique syllables,
Where reigns in turn the father of songs,
Phoebus, and the great Pan, the harvest sovereign.

Translated by William A. Sigler

Submitted by Ryan McGuire

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 20, 2023

41 sec read
114

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCACBXA DDX XXC X X
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 792
Words 137
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 8, 3, 3, 1, 1

Charles Baudelaire

Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. more…

All Charles Baudelaire poems | Charles Baudelaire Books

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