The Irreparable

How can we choke the old and long Remorse

Which lives, and squirms, and fights
And feeds on us as worms upon a corse,
Or, on the oak, its mites?
How can we choke the old and long Remorse?

What subtle philtre, wine, or drowsy draught
Will drown that ancient foe,
Greedy as whores in his disastrous craft,
Ant-patient, sure, and slow?
What subtle philtre, wine or drowsy draught?

Lovely enchantress, if you know it, say
To this soul whelmed with woes,
Dying, whom loads of wounded crush to clay
Under the horses' shoes:
Lovely enchantress, if you know it, say

To this poor moribund, while wolves yet stalk him
And ravens croak his doom,
To this spent soldier say if fate will baulk him
Even of a cross or tomb —
Say to this moribund, while wolves yet stalk him!

Can this black muddy sky be ever lighted,
The shades be ever torn,
Denser than pitch, to day and dusk benighted,
To lightning, stars, or morn?
Can this black muddy sky be ever lighted?

The candle Hope that shows the Inn to strangers
Is blown out, snuffed, and melted.
Lacking both moon and glimmer, how shall rangers
Of evil roads be sheltered?
The devil snuffed the light that burned for strangers.

Sweet witch, do you love spirits lost to grace?
Whose sins are not remitted?
Say, do you know Remorse, with venomed face,
By whom our hearts are spitted?
Sweet witch, do you love spirits lost to grace?

The Irreparable gnaws us where it lurks
And for our soul's defacement,
As on a monument the termite, works
Up from the very basement.
The Irreparable gnaws us where it lurks.

In tawdry theatres I've sometimes seen
How, to the blare of brasses,
Miraculous, to light some hellish scene,
Like dawn, a fairy passes;
In tawdry theatres I've often seen

That by this fay of light, and gold, and gauzes,
Some monstrous fiend is slain.
But my heart knows no raptures or applauses —
A fleapit where, in vain,
One waits, and waits the creature winged with gauzes.

— Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)