Classic Poem

The MUTE gapings of the mine
Swallowed phalanxes of workers
Who, suspended over hideous gulfs,
Seem swallows
Poised at fantastic heights;
Phosphorescent as glow-worms,
Yellowish, tremulous,
Along dizzy edges their torches prick the dark;
And, blackened with coal,
They cling down the cold tunnels
Like a wretched colony of beetles
Boring a rotten tree


Miserable artists, your vain dream
Flies lonely amid the shadows
As fireflies threading a summer night.
The murderous light of the lamps,
Gilding the arrogant columns,
Will scorch your immortal brows
And your sapphire wings, O madmen!
Without bread or love or a cave
Where sleep might ease your fever,
You succumb to the barbarous chain
Dragging you toward the Seine-mud:
Dogs, miners, artists,
The arid enclosures that shut you in
Consume your livid flesh;
And in the world's Sahara
You find the water of tears only.