The Albatross

The Flowers of Evil ~ The Albatross written by Charles Baudelaire

Translation A. S. Kline

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Often, for their amusement, bored sailors

take albatrosses, vast sea-birds, that sleep

in the air, indolent fellow travellers,

following the ship skimming the deep.

No sooner are they set down on the boards,

than those kings of the azure, maladroit, shamefully

let their vast white wings, like oars,

trail along their sides, piteously.

Winged traveller, gauche, gross, useless, laughable,

now, one of them, with a pipe stem, prods you,

who, a moment ago, were beautiful:

another, limping, mimics the cripple who flew.

The Poet bears a likeness to that prince of the air,

who mocks at slingshots, and haunts the winds:

on earth, an exile among the scornful, where

he is hampered, in walking, by his giant wings.