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Charles Baudelaire: Charles Baudelaire Poems

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CUPID AND THE SKULL

Charles Baudelaire

An Old Lamp Base

Cupid is seated on the skull
Of Humanity;
On this throne the impious one
With the shameless laugh
Is gaily blowing round bubbles
That rise in the air
As if they would rejoin the globes
At the ether's end.
The sphere, fragile and luminous,
Takes flight rapidly,
Bursts and spits out its flimsy soul
Like a golden dream.
I hear the skull groan and entreat
At every bubble:
"When is this fierce, ludicrous game
To come to an end?
Because what your pitiless mouth
Scatters in the air,
Monstrous murderer — is my brain,
My flesh and my blood!"