Explore "Florian's Song" by Charles Pierre Baudelaire on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
My soul, it shall not take us, / O we will escape / This world that strives to break us / And cast us to its shape; / Its chisel shall not enter, / Its fire shall not touch, / Hard from rim to centre, / We will not crack or smutch.
'Gainst words sweet and flowered / We have an amulet, / We will not play the coward / For any black threat; / If we but give endurance / To what is now within -- / The single assurance / That it is good to win.
Slaves think it better / To be weak than strong, / Whose hate is a fetter / And their love a thong. / But we will view those others / With eyes like stone, / And if we have no brothers / We will walk alone.