For me, my soul is cracked, and 'mid her cares, Would often fill with her songs the midnight airs And oft it chances that her feeble moan Is like the wounded warrior's fainting groan, Who by a lake of blood, 'neath bodies slain, In anguish falls, and never moves again. Spleen The rainy moon of all the world is weary, And from its urn a gloomy cold pours down, Upon the pallid inmates of the mortuary, And on the neighbouring outskirts of the town. My wasted cat, in searching for a litter, Bestirs its mangy paws from post to post; (A poet's soul that wanders in the gutter, With the jaded voice of a shiv'ring ghost). The smoking pine-log, while the drone laments, Accompanies the wheezy pendulum, The while amidst a haze of dirty scents, --Those fatal remnants of a sick man's room-- The gallant knave of hearts and queen of spades Relate their ancient amorous escapades. Obsession Great forests, you alarm me like a mighty fane; Like organ-tones you roar, and in our hearts of stone, Where ancient sobs vibrate, O halls of endless pain! The answering echoes of your "De Profundis" moan. I hate thee, Ocean! hate thy tumults and thy throbs, My spirit finds them in himself. This bitter glee Of vanquished mortals, full of insults and of sobs, I hear it in the mighteous laughter of the sea. O starless night! thy loveliness my soul inhales, Without those starry rays which speak a language known, For I desire the dark, the naked and the lone. But e'en those darknesses themselves to me are veils, Where live--and, by the millions 'neath my eyelids prance, Long, long departed Beings with familiar glance. Magnetic Horror "Beneath this sky, so livid and strange, Tormented like thy destiny, What thoughts within thy spirit range Themselves?--O libertine reply." --With vain desires, for ever torn Towards the uncertain, and the vast, And yet, like Ovid--I'll not mourn-- Who from his Roman Heaven was cast. O heavens, turbulent as the streams, In you I mirror forth my pride! Your clouds, which clad in mourning, glide, Are the hearses of my dreams, And in your illusion lies the hell, Wherein my heart delights to dwell. The Lid Where'er he may rove, upon sea or on land, 'Neath a fiery sky or a pallid sun, Be he Christian or one of Cythera's band, Opulent Croesus or beggar--'tis one, Whether citizen, peasant or vagabond he, Be his little brain active or dull. Everywhere, Man feels the terror of mystery, And looks upon high with a glance full of fear. The Heaven above, that oppressive wall; A ceiling lit up in some lewd music hall, Where the actors step forth on a blood-red soil; The eremite's hope, and the dread of the sot, The Sky; that black lid of a mighty pot, Where, vast and minute, human Races boil. Bertha's Eyes