The Two Good Sisters, Poem by Charles Baudelaire

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

Debauchery and Death are two amiable girls,
Lavish with kisses and rich in health,
Whose flank, forever virgin and draped in rags,
Beneath eternal labor has never given birth.

To the sinister poet, enemy of families,
Favored by hell, a courtier ill-tempted,
Tombs and brothels show beneath their arbors
A bed that remorse has never frequented.

And the coffin and the alcove, fertile in blasphemies,
Offer us in turn, like two good sisters,
Terrible pleasures and dreadful sweetnesses.

When will you bury me, Debauchery with filthy arms?
O Death, when will you come, her rival in charms,
To graft your black cypresses onto her foul myrtles?

Charles Baudelaire

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