The Self-Tormentor

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

To J. G. F.

I shall strike you without anger
And without hate, like a butcher,
Like Moses the rock!
And from your eyelid I shall make,

To water my Sahara,
The waters of suffering spring forth.
My desire swollen with hope
Upon your salty tears shall swim

Like a ship putting out to sea,
And in my heart which they will intoxicate
Your dear sobs will resound
Like a drum beating the charge!

Am I not a false chord
In the divine symphony,
Thanks to the voracious Irony
That shakes me and bites me?
She is in my voice, the shrew!
It is all my blood, that black poison!
I am the sinister mirror
In which the virago looks at herself.

I am the wound and the knife!
I am the slap and the cheek!
I am the limbs and the wheel,
And the victim and the executioner!

I am the vampire of my own heart,
– One of those great abandoned ones
Condemned to eternal laughter,
And who can no longer smile!

Charles Baudelaire

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