MISTS AND RAIN

Waning autumn, winter, mudbound spring-I thank these somnolent seasons which I love for offering to both my heart and mind so vaporous a shroud, so vague a tomb. Here on this huge plain where the wind perfects a will of its own and the weathervane cries all night, now and not in the tepid days to come my soul prefers to spread her raven winds. Filled with dead and dying things, the heart itself is frozen fast, and best of all- O queen of our climate, ashen time of year!-your livid shadow never seen to change except on moonless nights when two by two we rock our pain to sleep on a reckless bed.

Charles Baudelaire,

Les Fleurs du Mal