DON JUAN IN HADES
by: Charles Baudelaire
- HEN
Juan sought the subterranean flood,
- And paid his obolus on the Stygian shore,
- Charon, the proud and sombre beggar, stood
- With one strong, vengeful hand on either oar.
-
- With open robes and bodies agonised,
- Lost women writhed beneath that darkling sky;
- There were sounds as of victims sacrificed:
- Behind him all the dark was one long cry.
-
- And Sganarelle, with laughter, claimed his pledge;
- Don Luis, with trembling finger in the air,
- Showed to the souls who wandered in the sedge
- The evil son who scorned his hoary hair.
-
- Shivering with woe, chaste Elvira the while,
- Near him untrue to all but her till now,
- Seemed to beseech him for one farewell smile
- Lit with the sweetness of the first soft vow.
-
- And clad in armour, a tall man of stone
- Held firm the helm, and clove the gloomy flood;
- But, staring at the vessel's track alone,
- Bent on his sword the unmoved hero stood.
'Don Juan in Hades' 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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