Read "A Reasonable Protestation" by Charles Pierre Baudelaire online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
[To F., who complained of his vagueness and lack of / dogmatic statement]
Not, I suppose, since I deny / Appearance is reality, / And doubt the substance of the earth / Does your remonstrance come to birth; / Not that at once I both affirm / 'Tis not the skin that makes the worm / And every tactile thing with mass / Must find its symbol in the grass / And with a cool conviction say / Even a critic's more than clay / And every dog outlives his day. / This kind of vagueness suits your view, / You would not carp at it; for you / Did never stand with those who take / Their pleasures in a world opaque. / For you a tree would never be / Lovely were it but a tree, / And earthly splendours never splendid / If by transience unattended. / Your eyes are on a farther shore / Than any of earth; you not adore / As godhead God's dead hieroglyph, / Nor would you be perturbed if / Some prophet with a voice of thunder / And avalanche arm should blast and founder / The logical pillars that maintain / This visible world which loads the brain, / Loads the brain and withers the heart / And holds man from his God apart.