Metamorphosis of the Vampire
by Charles Baudelaire
- Meanwhile the woman, from her strawberry lips,
- (Like a snake on redhot coals, writhing her hips
- And working her breasts against the stays of her busk)
- Let flow these words, with a heavy scent of musk:
- "My mouth is wet; and I know deep in my bed
- How to bury old conscience till he's dead.
- On these proud breasts I wipe all tears away
- And old men laugh like children at their play.
- For the man who sees me naked, I replace
- The moon, the sun, and all the stars of space!
- And I am so expert in voluptuous charms
- That when I hush a man in my terrible arms
- Yielding my bosom to his biting lust,
- (Shy but provocative, frail and yet robust)
- The mattress swoons in commotion under me,
- And the helpless angels would be damned for me!
- When she had sucked the marrow from every bone,
- I turned to her as languid as a stone
- To give her one last kiss ... and saw her thus:
- A slimy rotten wineskin, full of pus!
- I shut my eyes, transfixed in a chill of fright,
- And when I opened them to the living light . . .
- Beside me there, the powerful robot
- That fed its fill out of my blood . . . was not!
- Instead, the cold ruins of a skeleton
- Shivered, creaking like a weather vane
- Or like a sign hung out on an iron arm
- Swinging through long winter nights in the storm.