Шарль Бодлер (Charles Baudelaire) (1821-1867)
французский поэт, критик, эссеист и переводчик

• Список стихотворений поэта

Перевод стихотворения
«Spleen (Quand le ciel bas et lourd pèse comme un couvercle)»
на английский язык.

Spleen

When the low heavy sky weighs like a lid
	Upon the spirit aching for the light,
And all the wide horizon’s line is hid
	By a black day sadder than any night;

When the changed earth is but a dungeon dank
	Where batlike Hope goes blindly fluttering
And, striking wall and roof and mouldered plank,
	Bruises his tender head and timid wing;

When like grim prison-bars stretch down the thin,
	Straight, rigid pillars of the endless rain,
And the dumb throngs of infamous spiders spin
	Their meshes in the caverns of the brain;—

Suddenly, bells leap forth into the air,
	Hurling a hideous uproar to the sky
As 'twere a band of homeless spirits who fare
	Through the strange heavens, wailing stubbornly.

And hearses, without drum or instrument,
	File slowly through my soul; crushed, sorrowful,
Weeps Hope, and Grief, fierce and omnipotent,
	Plants his black banner on my drooping skull.

When the Low, Heavy Sky

When the low, heavy sky weighs like the giant lid
Of a great pot upon the spirit crushed by care,
And from the whole horizon encircling us is shed
A day blacker than night, and thicker with despair;

When Earth becomes a dungeon, where the timid bat
Called Confidence, against the damp and slippery walls
Goes beating his blind wings, goes feebly bumping at
The rotted, moldy ceiling, and the plaster falls;

When, dark and dropping straight, the long lines of the rain
Like prison-bars outside the window cage us in;
And silently, about the caught and helpless brain,
We feel the spider walk, and test the web, and spin;

Then all the bells at once ring out in furious clang,
Bombarding heaven with howling, horrible to hear,
Like lost and wandering souls, that whine in shrill harangue
Their obstinate complaints to an unlistening ear.

— And a long line of hearses, with neither dirge nor drums,
Begins to cross my soul. Weeping, with steps that lag,
Hope walks in chains; and Anguish, after long wars, becomes
Tyrant at last, and plants on me his inky flag.

Spleen (Quand le ciel bas et lourd pèse comme un couvercle)

Quand le ciel bas et lourd pèse comme un couvercle
Sur l’esprit gémissant en proie aux longs ennuis,
Et que de l’horizon embrassant tout le cercle
Il nous verse un jour noir plus triste que les nuits ;

Quand la terre est changée en un cachot humide,
Où l’Espérance, comme une chauve-souris,
S’en va battant les murs de son aile timide
Et se cognant la tête à des plafonds pourris ;

Quand la pluie étalant ses immenses traînées
D’une vaste prison imite les barreaux,
Et qu’un peuple muet d’infâmes araignées
Vient tendre ses filets au fond de nos cerveaux,

Des cloches tout à coup sautent avec furie
Et lancent vers le ciel un affreux hurlement,
Ainsi que des esprits errants et sans patrie
Qui se mettent à geindre opiniâtrement.

— Et de longs corbillards, sans tambours ni musique,
Défilent lentement dans mon âme ; l’Espoir,
Vaincu, pleure, et l’Angoisse atroce, despotique,
Sur mon crâne incliné plante son drapeau noir.

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