Flowers of Evil

<h3><SPAN name="Autumn_Song" id="Autumn_Song"></SPAN>Autumn Song</h3> <p class="margin-b"> I<br/> <br/> Shortly we will plunge within the frigid gloom,<br/> Farewell swift summer brightness; all too short--<br/> I hear already sounding with a death-like boom<br/> The wood that falls upon the pavement of the court.<br/> <br/> The whole of winter enters in my Being--pain,<br/> Hate, honor, labour hard and forced--and dread,<br/> And like the northern sun upon its polar plane<br/> My heart will soon be but a stone, iced and red.<br/> <br/> I listen trembling unto every log that falls,<br/> The scaffold, which they build, has not a duller sound,<br/> My spirits waver, like the trembling tower walls<br/> that shake--with every echoing blow the builders pound.<br/> <br/> Meeseemeth--as to these monotonous blows I sway,<br/> They nail for one a coffin lid, or sound a knell--<br/> For whom? Autumn now--and summer yesterday!<br/> This strange mysterious noise betokens a farewell.<br/> <br/> <br/> <br/> II<br/> <br/> I love within your oblong eyes the verdant rays,<br/> My sweet! but bitter everything to-day meseems:<br/> And nought--your love, the boudoir, nor the flickering blaze,<br/> Can replace the sun that o'er the screen streams.<br/> <br/> And yet bemother and caress me, tender heart!<br/> Even me the thankless and the worthless one;<br/> Beloved or sister--unto me the sweets impart<br/> Of a glorious autumn or a sinking sun.<br/> <br/> Ephemeral task! the beckoning the beckoning empty tomb is set!<br/> Oh grant me--as upon your knees my head I lay,<br/> (Because the white and torrid summer I regret),<br/> To taste the parted season's mild and amber ray.<br/></p> <hr style="width: 35%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />