The Cracked Bell
(Charles Baudelaire, 1821-67)

It is both bitter and sweet on a winters’ night
to sit by a crackling fire, listening
for distant memories, rising like smoke
to the sound of bells, chiming through the fog.

How blessed the bell that still rings true,
still healthy and sound, however ancient,
its cry pealing out like a veteran soldier
keeping watch through the night!

But my soul’s cracked. When it tries
to fill the chill night air with its cries
it croaks— its feeble, wasted throat,

like a wounded man on a battlefield,
who tries to call but chokes on blood,
and dies, beneath a heap of his fellow dead.

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