The Remorse of the Dead (Remords Posthume)

Clark Ashton Smith

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

My sable love, when you at last are lain
Unsought upon the lone, sepulchral bed,
And darkly keep your brothel with the dead,—
Your roomless vault that weeps with fetid rain;
Yea, when the ponderous carven shaft unshaken
Is the one weight your passionate nipples know,
And grinds you down and will not let you go
To find again your faithless lechers, taken
By fairer trulls—then, then, O harlot love,
The grave, which has my very voice, will sigh
All night about your sleep-derided corse,
Whispering ever: "In the days above,
You dreamt not how the unslumbering wantons lie,
Gnawed by the worms which are the last remose."

Printed from: eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/465
Printed on: March 28, 2024