Works

My soul, do you remember the object we saw
on what was a fine summer's day:
at the path's far corner, a shameful corpse
on the gravel-bed, darkly lay,

legs in the air, like a lecherous woman,...

I have not forgotten our little white retreat
Where we were neighbors to the town of busy streets;
Our plaster Venus and Pomona barely could
Conceal their nakedness within our meagre wood....

Late autumns, winters, spring-times steeped in mud,
anaesthetizing seasons! You I praise, and love
for so enveloping my heart and brain
in vaporous shrouds, in sepulchres of rain.

...

Autumn's last days, winters and mud-soaked spring
I praise the stupefaction that you bring
By so enveloping my heart and brain
In shroud of vapours, tomb of mist and rain.
...

When, sullen beauty, you will sleep and have
As resting place a fine black marble tomb,
When for a boudoir in your manor-home
You have a hollow pit, a sodden cave,
...

Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?
Shame and remorse and sobs and weary spite,
And the vague terrors of the fearful night
That crush the heart up like a crumpled leaf?...

Often, beneath a street lamp's reddish light,
Where wind torments the glass and flame by night,
Where mankind swarms in stormy turbulence
Within a suburb's muddy labyrinth,
...

Man, with which to pay his ransom,
has two fields of deep rich earth,
which he must dig and bring to birth,
with the iron blade of reason.

To obtain the smallest rose,...

O shadowy Beauty mine, when thou shalt sleep
In the deep heart of a black marble tomb;
When thou for mansion and for bower shalt keep
Only one rainy cave of hollow gloom;
...

"Cemetery View Inn" "A queer sign," said our traveller to himself; "but it raises a thirst! Certainly the keeper -o f this inn appreciates Horace and the poet pupils of Epicurus. Perhaps he even apprehends the profound philosop...

How beautiful a new sun is when it rises,
flashing out its greeting, like an explosion!
Happy, whoever hails with sweet emotion
its descent, nobler than a dream, to our eyes!

...

Pale girl with russet hair,
Tatters in what you wear
Show us your poverty
And your beauty,

For me, poor poet, in
The frail and freckled skin
Of your young flesh
Is a sweetness.
...

Stupidity and error, avarice and vice,
possess our spirits, batten on our flesh,
we feed that fond remorse, our guest,
like ragged beggars nourishing their lice.

...