Love and the Skull

Poem by Charles Baudelaire Collection The Flowers of EvilThemes LovePeriod 19th centuryPrint

Love is seated on the skull
Of Humanity,
And on that throne the profane one,
With his shameless laugh,

Gaily blows round bubbles
That rise in the air,
As if to rejoin the worlds
Deep in the ether.

The luminous and fragile globe
Takes a great soaring flight,
Bursts and spits out its puny soul
Like a golden dream.

I hear the skull at each bubble
Pray and groan:
– “” This ferocious and ridiculous game,
When must it end?

For what your cruel mouth
Scatters in the air,
Assassin monster, is my brain,
My blood and my flesh! “”

Charles Baudelaire

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