Electric Windmill Issue No. 006 - Electric Windmill Press

SpleenBaudelaire translationby Owen LucasI should seem the king of a rainy country,Rich but impotent, young and yet aged,Who, tired of the sycophancy of his tutors,Idles himself with dogs as with other beasts.Nothing will entertain him, game nor falcon,Nor his people dying below his window.The groteque ballad of a favourite clownDoes not distract the temper of this invalid :His bed in fleurs-de-lis has become a tomb.The courtesans, for whom any prince is fine,No longer know what immodesty to employTo draw a smile from the decomposing youth.The craftsman who made him of gold wasNever able to extirpate the corrupt element :In bloodbaths come down from Romans, thatThe powerful may recall in their last days,He could not thaw out this insensible cadaverWhose blood is the green water of the Lethe.30