Poems and Baudelaire Flowers/The Burial of an Accursed Poet

by Charles Baudelaire

THE BURIAL OF AN ACCURSED
POET

If haply one dark, dreary night
Some charitable soul appear
And ’neath old rubble stow from sight
The body that you held so dear–


What time the chaste stars veil their eyes,
Drowsy and fain for slumber, there
Spiders shall weave their traceries,
Vipers their spotted young shall bear.


Above your doomed head you will hear
Each night throughout the heavy year
The lean wolves’ melancholy cries,


Famished hags’ howlings for a crust,
Lewd pastimes of old men who lust,
And scoundrels’ dark conspiracies.