Autumn Song
Autumn Song
Charles Baudelaire
I
Shortly we will plunge within the frigid gloom,
Farewell swift summer brightness; all too short--
I hear already sounding with a death-like boom
The wood that falls upon the pavement of the court.
The whole of winter enters in my Being--pain,
Hate, honor, labour hard and forced--and dread,
And like the northern sun upon its polar plane
My heart will soon be but a stone, iced and red.
I listen trembling unto every log that falls,
The scaffold, which they build, has not a duller sound,
My spirits waver, like the trembling tower walls
that shake--with every echoing blow the builders pound.
Meeseemeth--as to these monotonous blows I sway,
They nail for one a coffin lid, or sound a knell--
For whom? Autumn now--and summer yesterday!
This strange mysterious noise betokens a farewell.
II
I love within your oblong eyes the verdant rays,
My sweet! but bitter everything to-day meseems:
And nought--your love, the boudoir, nor the flickering blaze,
Can replace the sun that o'er the screen streams.
And yet bemother and caress me, tender heart!
Even me the thankless and the worthless one;
Beloved or sister--unto me the sweets impart
Of a glorious autumn or a sinking sun.
Ephemeral task! the beckoning the beckoning empty tomb is set!
Oh grant me--as upon your knees my head I lay,
(Because the white and torrid summer I regret),
To taste the parted season's mild and amber ray.
Verse breaks and indentation are preserved. Wrapped lines have a hanging indent. Width adapts to your screen.
From The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du mal), tr. 1909. Translation in the public domain. · Translated by Cyril Scott
