Page:Poems and Baudelaire Flowers.djvu/62

58 shall we kill this old, this long Remorse
 * Which writhes continually

And feeds on us as worms upon a corse,
 * Maggots upon a tree?

How stifle this implacable Remorse?

What wine, what drug, what philtre known of man
 * Will drown this ancient foe,

Ruthless and ravenous as a courtesan,
 * Sure as an ant, and slow?

What wine? What drug? What philtre known of man?

O tell, fair sorceress, tell if thou dost know
 * This soul distraught with pain

As a dying soldier crushed and bruised below
 * Steel hooves and wounded men!

O tell, fair sorceress, tell if thou dost know.

This poor racked wretch the wolf already flays
 * O’er whom the vultures whirr,

This broken warrior! if in vain he prays
 * For cross and sepulchre.

This anguished wretch the wolf already flays!

How should we rend dense gulfs which know not dawn
 * Nor eve, nor any star?

How pierce with light skies which abyss-like yawn
 * When black as pitch they are?

How should we rend dense gulfs which know not dawn?