Spleen
Frank Devenport, Charles Baudelaire, Don Ralke
When the low sky presses like a lid
On my spirit, heavy with pain
And all the wide horizon is
Curtained by a dark day, most sad than night;
When the earth is changed into a dank dungeon
Where hope, like a bat fluttering blindly
Beats his wings against the walls
And dashes his head on the rotten ceiling;
When the long lines of gray rain
Reaching down, become the bars of a huge prison
And loathsome spiders, like silent people
Stretch threads to the depths of my brain;
Suddenly the bells jerk wildly
And hurl to the sky a horrible shriek
Like some wandering and landless spirit
Wailing in despair;
And long hearses without drums, without music
File slowly by my soul, Hope, vanquished
Weeps, and despotic agony
Plants on my bent skull its flag of black
