Français
Español
Italiano
Deutsch
Português
Can we stifle the old, the long Remorse,
That lives, and stirs, and writhes,
And feeds on us like the worm on the dead,
Like the caterpillar on the oak?
Can we stifle the implacable Remorse?
In what philter, in what wine, in what herb tea,
Shall we drown this old enemy,
Destructive and greedy like the courtesan,
Patient like the ant?
In what philter? — in what wine? — in what herb tea?
Tell me, beautiful witch, oh! tell me, if you know,
To this mind filled with anguish
And like the dying man crushed by the wounded,
Whom the horse’s hoof tramples,
Tell me, beautiful witch, oh! tell me, if you know,
To this dying man whom the wolf already scents
And whom the raven watches,
To this broken soldier! if he must despair
Of having his cross and his tomb;
This poor dying man whom the wolf already scents!
Can one light up a muddy and black sky?
Can one tear through darkness
Denser than pitch, without morning and without evening,
Without stars, without funeral lightning?
Can one light up a muddy and black sky?
Hope that shines in the windows of the Inn
Is blown out, is dead forever!
Without moon and without rays, to find where one shelters
The martyrs of an evil road!
The Devil has extinguished everything in the windows of the Inn!
Adorable witch, do you love the damned?
Tell me, do you know the irremediable?
Do you know Remorse, with its poisoned darts,
For which our heart serves as target?
Adorable witch, do you love the damned?
The Irreparable gnaws with its cursed tooth
Our soul, pitiful monument,
And often it attacks, like the termite,
The building from its base.
The Irreparable gnaws with its cursed tooth!
— I have sometimes seen, at the back of a banal theater
That the sonorous orchestra inflamed,
A fairy kindle in an infernal sky
A miraculous dawn;
I have sometimes seen at the back of a banal theater
A being, who was only light, gold and gauze,
Bring down enormous Satan;
But my heart, which ecstasy never visits,
Is a theater where one waits
Always, always in vain, for the Being with wings of gauze!
Charles Baudelaire
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-the-irreparable-charles-baudelaire/