Inquiring.

EPIGRAPH for a BANNED BOOK

Gentle reader, being—as you are—

a cautious man of uncorrupted tastes,

lay aside this disobliging work,

as orgiastic as it is abject.

Unless you’ve graduated from the school

of Satan (devil of a pedagogue!)

the poems will be Greek to you, or else

you’ll set me down for one more raving fool.

If, however, your impassive eye

can plunge into the chasms on each page,

read on, my friend: you’ll learn to love me yet.

Inquiring spirit, fellow-sufferer

in search, even here, of your own Paradise,

pity me. . . If not, to Hell with you!

Charles Baudelaire