Pluviose, hating all that lives, and loathing me,
Distills his cold and gloomy rain and slops it down
Upon the pallid lodgers in the cemetery
Next door, and on the people shopping in the town.
My cat, for sheer discomfort, waves a sparsely-furred
And shabby tail incessantly on the tiled floor;
And, wandering sadly in the rain- spout can be heard
The voice of some dead poet who had these rooms before.
The log is wet, and smokes; its hissing high lament
Mounts to the bronchial clock on the cracked mental there;
While (heaven knows whose they were - some dropsical old maid's)
In a soiled pack of cards that reeks of dirty scent,
The handsome jack of hearts and the worn in queen of spades
Talk in suggestive tones of their old love affair.
From "Translations from 'Flowers of Evil' by Charles Baudelaire" 1936
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