Excerpt from Visions of the Evening

To The Immortal Memory Of Charles Baudelaire

Baudelaire, green flower that sways
Over the morass of misery
Painfully, for days on days,
Till it falls, without a sigh:

Brooding bronze-wrought image that
(Lit by a mineral fire which strains
Upwards from a desert flat)
Stands on hidden, noisome drains:

Laughter, mockery, and woe,
Mingled in a moaning cry
Which bursts out from hell below
To he sacred Throne on high:

Rending veils that keep unseen
God, the Maker of despair,
Proving (lesson of life's scene!)
That the Throne is empty there:

Bidding, in hoarse-whispered tones,
That the great Consoler rise:
Satan, take Thy weary ones
Far from helpless lands and skies,

To that tomb where nothing is,
Where no joys can do us harm,
But the worm's soft gnawing kiss
Keeps us faint and still and warm!

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