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Charles Baudelaire: Charles Baudelaire Poems

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POSTHUMOUS REMORSE

Charles Baudelaire

When you're asleep, dear shadow-coloured wench,
Within a coal-black, marble monument:
When, for your room and mansion, you are pent
In a wet cellar and a hollow trench:
When the stone, pressing on your startled breast
And flanks in fluent suppleness competing,
Prevents your heart from wishing or from beating,
Your feet from racing on their reckless quest.
The tomb that shares my deathless recollection
(For poets best are understood by tombs)
On those long nights, when never sleep presumes,
Will say, "What boots, frail vase of imperfection,
Not to have known what pains with death begin?" —
And, like remorse, the worm will gnaw your skin