I love you as I love the night itself,
And all the more, the more you grow aloof
And beautiful, and sad, and taciturn,
The more you seem, ironically, to spurn
My melancholy arms, and magnify
The space that separates me from the sky.
I rise to the attack, mount an assault
Like worms that climb a corpse within a vault,
And prize your cold disdain -- you cruel beast!
That makes me yet more avid at the feast.
- Charles Pierre Baudelaire (1821-1867)
