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

"Ah, tell me, whence has risen thy strange melancholy,
Mounting as ocean mounts upon a bare, black reef ?"
—When time has trampled out the vintage of our folly,
Life is an evil thing! This is a common grief,

An all-too-simple secret each in turn must prove,
And plain at last for all, as joy is plain for thee.
Therefore be mute, and search no more, my curious love—
Too sweet thy voice to ask this bitter thing of me.

Be mute—and still be ignorant! soul enravished ever!
Mouth of the childish laugh For life enchains us never
With bonds more strong, more subtle than the bonds of doom.

Ah let, ah, let my heart, grown drunken still with lies,
Plunge far into that summer dreamland of thine eyes,
Or sleep long-time beneath thy lashes golden gloom!