THE EVIL MONK
by: Charles Baudelaire
- HE ancient
cloisters on their lofty walls
- Had holy Truth in painted frescoes shown,
- And, seeing these, the pious in those halls
- Felt their cold, lone austereness less alone.
-
- At that time when Christ's seed flowered all around,
- More than one monk, forgotten in his hour,
- Taking for studio the burial ground,
- Glorified Death with simple faith and power.
-
- And my soul is a sepulchre where I,
- Ill cenobite, have spent eternity:
- On the vile cloister walls no pictures rise.
-
- O when may I cast off this weariness,
- And make the pageant of my old distress
- For these hands labour, pleasure for these eyes?
'The Evil Monk' is reprinted from
The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire. Ed. James
Huneker. New York: Brentano's, 1919. |
MORE POEMS BY CHARLES BAUDELAIRE |
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