The Tomb of Charles Baudelaire

By Stéphane Mallarmé 1842–1898 Stephane Mallarme

Translated By Henry Weinfield

The buried temple empties through its bowels,

Sepulchral sewer spewing mud and rubies,

Abominably some idol of Anubis,

Its muzzle all aflame with savage howls.

Or if the recent gas the wick befouls

That bears so many insults, it illumines

In haggard outline an immortal pubis

Flying along the streetlights on its prowls.

What wreaths dried out in cities without prayer

Of night could bless like that which settles down

Vainly against the marble of Baudelaire

In the fluttering veil that girds her absence round,

A tutelary poison, his own Wraith,

We breathe in always though it bring us death.

Stéphane Mallarmé, "The Tomb of Charles Baudelaire" from Collected Poems. Copyright © 1994 by Stéphane Mallarmé. Reprinted by permission of University of California Press.

Source: Collected Poems (University of California Press, 1994)

Biography

Stéphane Mallarmé is one of France's four major poets of the second half of the nineteenth century, along with Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud. Although he was recognized as such during his lifetime, much of his poetry was acknowledged to be difficult to understand because of its tortuous syntax, ambiguous expressions, and obscure imagery. Since his lifetime, critics have continued to disagree as to the . . .

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