Page:Poems and Baudelaire Flowers.djvu/45

Rh but a long blind tempest was my youth,
 * Sun-shot at times; the thunder and the rain

Have worked their havock with so little ruth
 * That in my garden few red fruits remain.

Now have I reached the autumn of my thought,
 * And shovel and pick must use some soil to save

From out the ruins that the rain hath wrought
 * Where all around great pits gape like the grave.

Who knows if these last flowers of my dreams Shall find beneath this naked strand that streams
 * The mystic substance which their strength imparts?

O misery! misery! Time eats our lives,
 * And that dark Enemy who gnaws our hearts

Grows by the blood he sucks from us, and thrives.