MAN AND THE SEA
by: Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)
- ree man! the sea is to thee ever dear!
- The sea is thy mirror, thou regardest thy soul
- In its mighteous waves that unendingly roll,
- And thy spirit is yet not a chasm less drear.
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- Thou delight'st to plunge deep in thine image down;
- Thou tak'st it with eyes and with arms in embrace,
- And at times thine own inward voice would'st efface
- With the sound of its savage ungovernable moan.
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- You are both of you, sombre, secretive and deep:
- Oh mortal, thy depths are foraye unexplored,
- Oh seano one knoweth thy dazzling hoard,
- You both are so jealous your secrets to keep!
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- And endless ages have wandered by,
- Yet still without pity or mercy you fight,
- So mighty in plunder and death your delight:
- Oh wrestlers! so constant in enmity!
"Man and the Sea" is reprinted from The Flowers of Evil. Charles Baudelaire. London: Elkin Mathews, 1909. |
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