Charles Baudelaire
Mists and Rains
O ends of autumn, winters, springtimes deep in mud,
Seasons of drowsiness, — my love and gratitude
I give you, that have wrapped with mist my heart and brain
As with a shroud, and shut them in a tomb of rain.
In this wide land when coldly blows the bleak south-west
And weathervanes at night grow hoarse on the house-crest,
Better than in the time when green things bud and grow
My mounting soul spreads wide its black wings of a crow.
The heart filled up with gloom, and to the falling sleet
Long since accustomed, finds no other thing more sweet —
O dismal seasons, queens of our sad climate crowned —
Than to remain always in your pale shadows drowned;
(Unless it be, some dark night, kissing an unseen head,
To rock one's pain to sleep upon a hazardous bed.)
— Edna St. Vincent Millay, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)