Spleen: When the Low, Heavy Sky Weighs Like a Lid, Poem by Charles Baudelaire

Poem by Charles Baudelaire Collection The Flowers of EvilThemes SadnessPeriod 19th century

When the low, heavy sky weighs like a lid
On the groaning spirit, prey to long ennuis,
And from the horizon embracing all the circle
It pours on us a black day sadder than the nights;

When the earth is changed into a damp dungeon,
Where Hope, like a bat,
Goes beating the walls with its timid wing
And knocking its head against putrid ceilings;

When the rain spreading its immense trails
Imitates the bars of a vast prison,
And a mute people of infamous spiders
Comes to stretch its webs at the bottom of our brains,

Bells suddenly leap with fury
And hurl toward the sky a frightful howl,
Like wandering spirits without a homeland
Who begin to whine obstinately.

– And long hearses, without drums or music,
File slowly through my soul; Hope,
Vanquished, weeps, and atrocious, despotic Anguish
On my bowed skull plants its black flag.

Charles Baudelaire

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