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Home > Authors Index > Browse all available works of Charles Baudelaire > Text of Sick Muse [Poor Muse, Alas, What Ails Thee, Then, To-Day?]

A poem by Charles Baudelaire

The Sick Muse [Poor Muse, Alas, What Ails Thee, Then, To-Day?]

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Title:     The Sick Muse [Poor Muse, Alas, What Ails Thee, Then, To-Day?]
Author: Charles Baudelaire [More Titles by Baudelaire]

Poor Muse, alas, what ails thee, then, to-day?
Thy hollow eyes with midnight visions burn,
Upon thy brow in alternation play,
Folly and Horror, cold and taciturn.

Have the green lemure and the goblin red,
Poured on thee love and terror from their urn?
Or with despotic hand the nightmare dread
Deep plunged thee in some fabulous Minturne?

Would that thy breast where so deep thoughts arise,
Breathed forth a healthful perfume with thy sighs;
Would that thy Christian blood ran wave by wave

In rhythmic sounds the antique numbers gave,
When Phœbus shared his alternating reign
With mighty Pan, lord of the ripening grain.




[The end]
Charles Baudelaire's poem: Sick Muse [Poor Muse, Alas, What Ails Thee, Then, To-Day?]

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