The Death of Lovers

Clark Ashton Smith

(Translated "from the French of Charles Pierre Baudelaire")

On couches filled with odors faint and failing,
Divans profound as tombs, we shall recline;
Around us, with strange languid petals paling,
The flowers that bloomed where ampler heavens shine.

Our hearts, in their last love and ardor vying,
Shall flare to vast flambeaux before the end;
And in our souls' twin mirrors doubly dying,
Their soaring flames, reflected, shall descend.

Some eve of rose and mystic blue shall brighten;
One golden flash between us twain shall lighten
Like a long sigh fraught with departure's sorrow;

And the angel who unseals the sepulcher,
Joyous and faithful, shall relume tomorrow
The tarnished mirrors and the flames that were.

Printed from: www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/118
Printed on: March 29, 2024