Spleen (J'ai plus de souvenirs) by Charles Baudelaire (read by Tom O'Bedlam)

There's a malady we all suffer from to some extent, in that we spend too much time thinking about minor misfortunes, trivial insults and catastrophes that are unlikely to happen. It seems that Baudelaire accumulated a burden of unhappy memories and notions as the years went by - he rarely seemed to think about anything else. I'm sure there's a psychological name for it - "Melancholia" perhaps - but "Spleen" works just was well. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Spleen

If you want to hear it in French:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap6hVuuJpLM

A self-portrait of Jean Cocteau, in a letter addressed to Paul Valéry - about 1924. (selfies are older than you think)

Two Roses an a Table Cloth by Edouard Manet

Were I ten centuries old, could I remember more?

A weighty chest of drawers, crammed with a random store
Of poems, billets-doux, writs, songs, balance sheets,
And heavy skeins of hair rolled up in old receipts,
Hides fewer secrets, surely, than my sorry brain,
A pyramid and vault, whose corridors contain
More corpses than the potter's field, or late or soon.
A graveyard, I, abominated by the moon,
Where, like a viscous worm, remorse thrusts out his head
To strike forever at my most beloved dead.
I am an ancient boudoir filled with faded roses
In which a ruck of long-outmoded gowns reposes,
Where pastels all too sad and Bouchers all too pale
Alone breathe in the scents that uncorked flasks exhale.
Nothing can be so long as days, limping and drear,
Under the heavy flakes of year on snowy year,
When ennui, fruit of dismal incuriosity,
Assumes the fearful scope of immortality.
— Henceforth you are no more, O mind, O living matter!
Than a cold granite block which unknown terrors spatter,
Dozing deep in the wastes of a Saharan daze,
An ancient Sphinx unknown of our indifferent days,
Omitted from all maps, a lonely savage one
Who can sing only at the setting of the sun.

Original:
J'ai plus de souvenirs que si j'avais mille ans.

Un gros meuble à tiroirs encombré de bilans,
De vers, de billets doux, de procès, de romances,
Avec de lourds cheveux roulés dans des quittances,
Cache moins de secrets que mon triste cerveau.
C'est une pyramide, un immense caveau,
Qui contient plus de morts que la fosse commune.
— Je suis un cimetière abhorré de la lune,
Où comme des remords se traînent de longs vers
Qui s'acharnent toujours sur mes morts les plus chers.
Je suis un vieux boudoir plein de roses fanées,
Où gît tout un fouillis de modes surannées,
Où les pastels plaintifs et les pâles Boucher
Seuls, respirent l'odeur d'un flacon débouché.
Rien n'égale en longueur les boiteuses journées,
Quand sous les lourds flocons des neigeuses années
L'ennui, fruit de la morne incuriosité,
Prend les proportions de l'immortalité.
— Désormais tu n'es plus, ô matière vivante!
Qu'un granit entouré d'une vague épouvante,
Assoupi dans le fond d'un Sahara brumeux;
Un vieux sphinx ignoré du monde insoucieux,
Oublié sur la carte, et dont l'humeur farouche
Ne chante qu'aux rayons du soleil qui se couche.

Видео Spleen (J'ai plus de souvenirs) by Charles Baudelaire (read by Tom O'Bedlam) канала SpokenVerse