In vaults of fathomless obscurity
Where Destiny has sentenced me for life;
Where cheerful rosy beams may never shine;
Where, living with that sullen hostess, Night,
I am an artist that a mocking God
Condemns, alas! to paint the gloom itself;
Where like a cook with ghoulish appetite
I boil and devour my own heart,
Sometimes there sprawls, and stretches out, and glows
A splendid ghost, or a surpassing charm,
And when this vision growing in my sight
In oriental languor, like a dream,
Is fully formed, I know the phantom’s name:
Yes, it is She! though black, yet full of light.
Written by Charles P. Baudelaire
The Way it Goes 