The Alchemy of Sadness
By Charles Baudelaire
One man lights you with his ardour
one decks you in mourning, Nature!
What says to the first: A Sepulchre!
To the other cries: Life and splendour!
Unknown Hermes, who assists,
yet intimidates me as well,
you make me Midas equal,
the saddest of alchemists:
You help me change gold to iron,
paradise to hells kingdom:
in the shrouded atmosphere
I find a dear corpse, and on
the celestial shores, its there,
I build a mighty sepulcher.