You'd
Take to Bed the Whole World ...
by Charles Baudelaire
You'd take to bed the whole world as your prize,
you slut of sluts, by boredom brutalized! To exercise your jaws at this rare
sport each day you must be served a fresh-killed heart. Lit up like
shop-windows in vulgar blaze or street-lamps glaring on public holidays,
your insolent eyes with borrowed power burn. Their beauty's proper law
they never learn. Oh blind and deaf machine, rich in torment- drinker
of the world's blood, wholesome instrument, how can you not feel shame, how
can you not blanch at each mirror from which your charms look out? This
hideous wrong in which you feel secure, has it not made you shrink one step
in fear,- that nature, strong in her concealed designs, makes use of
you, oh woman, queen of sins Vile animal! to mould a genius? Oh
foul magnificence - sublime disgrace! | |