Les Litanies De Satan

[Words taken from 'Revolte' Charles Baudelaire]

Oh you, the most knowledgeable and the most beautiful of Angels
God betrayed by fate and deprived of praise

Oh Prince of exile, who has been wronged
And who, defeated, always rises stronger

You who knows everything, great king of the underworld
Familiar healer of human anxieties

You who, even to lepers, to cursed outcasts
Teach through love the taste of Paradise

Oh you who from death, your old and strong lover
Brought forth Hope - a charming madwoman!

You who give the outcast that calm and lofty look
That damns an entire people around a scaffold

You who know in which corners of envious lands
The jealous God hid precious stones

You whose clear eye knows the deep arsenals
Where the people of metals lie buried

You whose broad hand hides the precipices
From the sleepwalking wanderer on the edge of buildings

You who, magically, soften the old bones
Of the tardy drunkard trampled by horses

You who, to console the frail suffering man
Taught us to mix saltpeter and sulfur

You who leave your mark, oh subtle accomplice
On the forehead of the pitiless and vile Croesus

You who instill in the eyes and hearts of girls
The worship of wounds and the love of rags

Staff of the exiled, lamp of inventors
Confessor of the hanged and conspirators

Adoptive father of those whom in His black anger
God the Father has cast out from earthly paradise

Glory and praise to you, Satan, in the heights
Of Heaven, where you reigned, and in the depths
Of Hell, where, defeated, you dream in silence!
May my soul one day, under the Tree of Knowledge
Rest near you, at the hour when on your brow
Like a new Temple its branches will spread!