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# Translation: Spleen by Charles Baudelaire
- URL: https://www.hawkword.com/poetry/translation-spleen-by-charles-baudelaire/
- Published: 2022-04-11T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2022-04-11T12:00:00.000Z
- Description: When heavens weigh upon the land, the clouds a lid upon a spirit trapped by trouble and despair horizon disappears, as if it has been hid the sunlight cannot pierce the gloom, though it is there
- Author: A. Gee
- Tags: Poetry, Allpoetry Import, #Import 2026-04-25 19:56

When heavens weigh upon the land, the clouds a lid  
upon a spirit trapped by trouble and despair  
horizon disappears, as if it has been hid  
the sunlight cannot pierce the gloom, though it is there

When earth is but a dungeon, humid, dark, and deep  
and hope, a besieged bat, afraid to take to wing  
and beating at the cave's sharp, grungy walls, so steep  
and pockmarked, rotten roof, to which its brethren cling

When rain comes down in solid sheets that bar escape  
thus trapping us in prisons common to our kind  
repugnant spiders plot and weave, their cobwebs drape  
the tenebrous recesses of a desperate mind

When bells wake up in a cacophony of sound  
and send their anguished howling to a heedless sky  
and hopeless spirits, slumped, feet dragging on the ground  
are moaning through their grievances, they know not why

and hearses, moving slowly, absent dirge or drums  
parade their tearful grief through my forsaken soul  
and Hope, collapses, crying, and all feeling numbs  
and having won, Dread raises flag upon its pole

---

**Author notes:** Quand le ciel bas et lourd pse comme un couvercle Sur l'esprit gmissant en proie aux longs ennuis, Et que de l'horizon embrassant tout le cercle II nous verse un jour noir plus triste que les nuits; Quand la terre est change en un cachot humide, O l'Esprance, comme une chauve-souris, S'en va battant les murs de son aile timide Et se cognant la tte des plafonds pourris; Quand la pluie talant ses immenses tranes D'une vaste prison imite les barreaux, Et qu'un peuple muet d'infmes araignes Vient tendre ses filets au fond de nos cerveaux, Des cloches tout coup sautent avec furie Et lancent vers le ciel un affreux hurlement, Ainsi que des esprits errants et sans patrie Qui se mettent geindre opinitrement. Et de longs corbillards, sans tambours ni musique, Dfilent lentement dans mon me; l'Espoir, Vaincu, pleure, et l'Angoisse atroce, despotique, Sur mon crne inclin plante son drapeau noir.