The Midnight Examination, Poem by Charles Baudelaire

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

The clock, striking midnight,
Ironically urges us
To recall what use
We made of the fleeing day:
– Today, a fateful date,
Friday, the thirteenth, we have,
Despite all that we know,
Led the life of a heretic;

We have blasphemed Jesus,
Of Gods the most incontestable!
Like a parasite at the table
Of some monstrous Croesus,
We have, to please the brute,
Worthy vassal of Demons,
Insulted what we love
And flattered what repels us;
Saddened, servile executioner,
The weak whom we wrongly despise;
Saluted the enormous Stupidity,
Stupidity with the bull’s brow;
Kissed stupid Matter
With great devotion,
And of putrefaction
Blessed the pallid light;

Finally, we have, to drown
Vertigo in delirium,
We, proud priest of the Lyre,
Whose glory is to unfurl
The intoxication of funereal things,
Drunk without thirst and eaten without hunger!…
– Quick, blow out the lamp, so
We may hide in the darkness!

Charles Baudelaire

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

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