Obsession

Forests, you scare me like cathedrals do;
You roar like an organ, and in our despicable hearts,
Chambers of tireless mourning where old gasps haw,
The echoes of your sacred chants reverberate.

I hate you, Ocean. Your bounding and your tumults,
My spirit rediscovers itself in them; that bitter laugh
of the vanquished man, full of sobs and insults,
Is what I hear in the enormous laugh of the sea.

How you would please me, O Night! Without your stars
whose light speaks an unknown tongue-
For I seek the empty, the black, the bare.

And the darkness is itself like a canvas
where-pouring from my eyes by the thousands
live the familiar faces of my lost and my dead.

Charles Baudelaire, les Fleurs du Mal
English adaptation © 2006 Paul Delehanty