Explore "The Benediction" by Charles Pierre Baudelaire on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When by the high decree of powers supreme, / The Poet came into this world outworn, / She who had borne him, in a ghastly dream, / Clenched blasphemous hands at God, and cried in scorn:
"O rather had I borne a writhing knot / Of unclean vipers, than my breast should nurse / This vile derision, of my joy begot / To be my expiation and my curse!