(Translated "from the French of Charles Pierre Baudelaire")

In shelter of the vaulted yews,
Like alien gods who shun the world,
The flown owls wait with feathers furled,
Darting red eyes. They dream and muse.

In rows unmoving they remain
Till the sad hour that they remember,
When, treading down the sun's last ember,
The towering night resumes its reign.

Their attitude will teach the seer
How wise, how needful is the fear
Of movement and of travailment:

For shadow-drunken wanderers bear
On all their ways the chastisement
Of having wished to wend elsewhere.