Translated by Richard Howard
（I）
February， peeved1 at Paris， pours a gloomy torrent2 on the pale lessees3 of the graveyard4 next door and a mortal chill on tenants5 of the foggy suburbs too.
The tiles afford no comfort to my cat that cannot keep its mangy body still；
the soul of some old poet haunts the drains and howls as if a ghost could hate the cold.
A churchbell grieves， a log in the fireplace smokes and hums falsetto to the clock's catarrh，while in a filthy6 reeking7 deck of cards
inherited from a dropsical old maid，the dapper Knave8 of Hearts and the Queen of Spades grimly disinter their love affairs.
（II）
Souvenirs？
More than if I had lived a thousand years！
No chest of drawers crammed9 with documents，
love-letters， wedding-invitations， wills，
a lock of someone's hair rolled up in a deed，
hides so many secrets as my brain.
This branching catacombs， this pyramid
contains more corpses10 than the potter's field：
I am a graveyard that the moon abhors11，
where long worms like regrets come out to feed
most ravenously12 on my dearest dead.
I am an old boudoir where a rack of gowns，
perfumed by withered13 roses， rots to dust；
where only faint pastels and pale Bouchers
inhale14 the scent15 of long-unsTOPpered flasks16.
Nothing is slower than the limping days
when under the heavy weather of the years
Boredom17， the fruit of glum18 indifference19，
gains the dimension of eternity20 . . .
Hereafter， mortal clay， you are no more
than a rock encircled by a nameless dread21，
an ancient sphinx omitted from the map，
forgotten by the world， and whose fierce moods
sing only to the rays of setting suns.
（III）
I'm like the king of a rainy country， rich
but helpless， decrepit22 though still a young man
who scorns his fawning23 tutors， wastes his time
on dogs and other animals， and has no fun；
nothing distracts him， neither hawk24 nor hound
nor subjects starving at the palace gate.
His favorite fool's obscenities fall flat
the royal invalid25 is not amused
and ladies in waiting for a princely nod
no longer dress indecently enough
to win a smile from this young skeleton.
The bed of state becomes a stately tomb.
The alchemist who brews26 him gold has failed
to purge27 the impure28 substance from his soul，
and baths of blood， Rome's legacy29 recalled
by certain barons30 in their failing days，
are useless to revive this sickly flesh
through which no blood but brackish31 Lethe seeps32.
（IV）
When skies are low and heavy as a lid
over the mind tormented33 by disgust，
and hidden in the gloom the sun pours down
on us a daylight dingier34 than the dark；
when earth becomes a trickling35 dungeon36 where
Trust like a bat keeps lunging through the air，
beating tentative wings along the walls
and bumping its head against the rotten beams；
when rain falls straight from unrelenting clouds，
forging the bars of some enormous jail，
and silent hordes37 of obscene spiders spin
their webs across the ba百度竞价推广ents of our brains；
then all at once the raging bells break loose，
hurling38 to heaven their awful caterwaul，
like homeless ghosts with no one left to haunt
whimpering their endless grievances39.
And giant hearses， without dirge40 or drums，
parade at half-step in my soul， where Hope，
defeated， weeps， and the oppressor Dread
plants his black flag on my assenting41 skull42.
