Arretez cést ici lémpire de la mort!

(Here is the kingdom of the dead)

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Forest, I fear you! In my ruined heart

your roaring wakens the same agony

as in cathedrals when the organ moans

and from the depths I hear that I am damned.

Ocean, I hate you! For I recognize

the sobs and insults of my own despair,

the bitter laughter of a beaten man

repeated in the sea's huge gaiety.

Night! You'd please me even more without these stars

which speak a language I know all too well-

I long for darkness, silence,

nothing there. . .

Yet even shadows have their shapes which live

where I imagine them to be,

the hordes of vanished souls

whose eyes acknowledge mine.

Obsession by Charles Baudelaire