Alchemy of Sorrow, Poem by Charles Baudelaire

One brightens you with its ardor,
The other places its mourning in you, Nature!
What says to one: Grave!
Says to the other: Life and splendor!

Unknown Hermes who assists me
And who always intimidated me,
You make me the equal of Midas,
The saddest of alchemists;

Through you I change gold into iron
And paradise into hell;
In the shroud of clouds

I discover a dear corpse,
And on the celestial shores
I build great sarcophagi.

Charles Baudelaire

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

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