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Baudelaire Charles
Baudelaire: His Prose and Poetry
THE SOUL OF WINE
One eve in the bottle sang the soul of wine:
"Man, unto thee, dear disinherited,
I sing a song of love and light divine —
Prisoned in glass beneath my seals of red.
"I know thou labourest on the hill of fire,
In sweat and pain beneath a flaming sun,
To give the life and soul my vines desire,
And I am grateful for thy labours done.
"For I find joys unnumbered when I lave
The throat of man by travail long outworn,
And his hot bosom is a sweeter grave
Of sounder sleep than my cold caves forlorn.
"Hearest thou not the echoing Sabbath sound?
The hope that whispers in my trembling breast?
Thy elbows on the table! gaze around;
Glorify me with joy and be at rest.
"To thy wife's eyes I'll bring their long-lost gleam,
I'll bring back to thy child his strength and light,
To him, life's fragile athlete I will seem
Rare oil that firms his muscles for the fight.
"I flow in man's heart as ambrosia flows;
The grain the eternal Sower casts in the sod —
From our first loves the first fair verse arose,
Flower-like aspiring to the heavens and God!"
THE WINE OF LOVERS
Space rolls to-day her splendour round!
Unbridled, spurless, without bound,
Mount we upon the wings of wine
For skies fantastic and divine!
Let us, like angels tortured by
Some wild delirious phantasy,
Follow the far-off mirage born
In the blue crystal of the morn.
And gently balanced on the wing
Of the wild whirlwind we will, ride,
Rejoicing with the joyous thing.
My sister, floating side by side,
Fly we unceasing whither gleams
The distant heaven of my dreams.
THE DEATH OF LOVERS
There shall be couches whence faint odours rise,
Divans like sepulchres, deep and profound;
Strange flowers that bloomed beneath diviner skies
The death-bed of our love shall breathe around.
And guarding their last embers till the end,
Our hearts shall be the torches of the shrine,
And their two leaping flames shall fade and blend
In the twin mirrors of your soul and mine.
And through the eve of rose and mystic blue
A beam of love shall pass from me to you,
Like a long sigh charged with a last farewell;
And later still an angel, flinging wide
The gates, shall bring to life with joyful spell
The tarnished mirrors and the flames that died.
THE DEATH OF THE POOR
Death is consoler and Death brings to life;
The end of all, the solitary hope;
We, drunk with Death's elixir, face the strife,
Take heart, and mount till eve the weary slope.
Across the storm, the hoar-frost, and the snow,
Death on our dark horizon pulses clear;
Death is the famous hostel we all know,
Where we may rest and sleep and have good cheer.
Death is an angel whose magnetic palms
Bring dreams of ecstasy and slumberous calms
To smooth the beds of naked men and poor.
Death is the mystic granary of God;
The poor man's purse; his fatherland of yore;
The Gate that opens into heavens untrod!
GYPSIES TRAVELLING
The tribe prophetic with the eyes of fire
Went forth last night; their little ones at rest
Each on his mother's back, with his desire
Set on the ready treasure of her breast.
Laden with shining arms the men-folk tread
By the long wagons where their goods lie hidden;
They watch the heaven with eyes grown weariëd
Of hopeless dreams that come to them unbidden.
The grasshopper, from out his sandy screen,
Watching them pass redoubles his shrill song;
Dian, who loves them, makes the grass more green,
And makes the rock run water for this throng
Of ever-wandering ones Whose calm eyes see
Familiar realms of darkness yet to be.
FRANCISCÆ MEÆ LAUDES
Novis te cantabo chordis,
O novelletum quod ludis
In solitudine cordis.
Esto sertis implicata,
O fœmina delicata
Per quam solvuntur peccata
Sicut beneficum Lethe,
Hauriam oscula de te,
Quæ imbuta es magnete.
Quum vitiorum tempestas
Turbabat omnes semitas,
Apparuisti, Deitas,
Velut stella salutaris
In naufragiis amaris…
Suspendam cor tuis aris!
Piscina plena virtutis,
Fons æternæ juventutis,
Labris vocem redde mutis!
Quod erat spurcum, cremasti;
Quod rudius, exæquasti;
Quod debile, confirmasti!
In fame mea tabema,
In nocte mea lucerna,
Recte me semper gubema.
Adde nunc vires viribus,
Dulce balneum suavibus,
Unguentatum odoribus!
Meos circa lumbos mica,
O castitatis lorica,
Aqua tincta seraphica;
Patera gemmis corusca,
Panis salsus, mollis esca,
Divinum vinum, Francisca!
A LANDSCAPE
I would, when I compose my solemn verse,
Sleep near the heaven as do astrologers,
Near the high bells, and with a dreaming mind
Hear their calm hymns blown to me on the wind.
Out of my tower, with chin upon my hands,
I'll watch the singing, babbling human bands;
And see clock-towers like spars against the sky,
And heavens that bring thoughts of eternity;
And softly, through the mist, will watch the birth
Of stars in heaven and lamplight on the earth;
The threads of smoke that rise above the town;
The moon that pours her pale enchantment down.
Seasons will pass till Autumn fades the rose;
And when comes Winter with his weary snows,
I'll shut the doors and window-casements tight,
And build my faery palace in the night.
Then I will dream of blue horizons deep;
Of gardens where the marble fountains weep;
Of kisses, and of ever-singing birds —
A sinless Idyll built of innocent words.
And Trouble, knocking at my window-pane
And at my closet door, shall knock in vain;
I will not heed him with his stealthy tread,
Nor from my reverie uplift my head;
For I will plunge deep in the pleasure still
Of summoning the spring-time with my will,
Drawing the sun out of my heart, and there
With burning thoughts making a summer air.
THE VOYAGE
I
The world is equal to the child's desire
Who plays with pictures by his nursery fire —
How vast the world by lamplight seems! How small
When memory's eyes look back, remembering all! —
One morning we set forth with thoughts aflame,
Or heart o'erladen with desire or shame;
And cradle, to the song of surge and breeze,
Our own infinity on the finite seas.
Some flee the memory of their childhood's home;
And others flee their fatherland; and some,
Star-gazers drowned within a woman's eyes,
Flee from the tyrant Circe's witcheries;
And, lest they still be changed to beasts, take flight
For the embrasured heavens, and space, and light,
Till one by one the stains her kisses made
In biting cold and burning sunlight fade.
But the true voyagers are they who part
From all they love because a wandering heart
Drives them to fly the Fate they cannot fly;
Whose call is ever "On!" – they know not why.
Their thoughts are like the clouds that veil a star
They dream of change as warriors dream of war;
And strange wild wishes never twice the same:
Desires no mortal man can give a name.
II
We are like whirling tops and rolling balls —
For even when the sleepy night-time falls,
Old Curiosity still thrusts us on,
Like the cruel Angel who goads forth the sun.
The end of fate fades ever through the air,
And, being nowhere, may be anywhere
Where a man runs, hope waking in his breast,
For ever like a madman, seeking rest.
Our souls are wandering ships outweariëd;
And one upon the bridge asks: "What's ahead?"
The topman's voice with an exultant sound
Cries: "Love and Glory!" – then we run aground.
Each isle the pilot signals when 'tis late,
Is El Dorado, promised us by fate —
Imagination, spite of her belief,
Finds, in the light of dawn, a barren reef.
Oh the poor seeker after lands that flee!
Shall we not bind and cast into the sea
This drunken sailor whose ecstatic mood
Makes bitterer still the water's weary flood?
Such is an old tramp wandering in the mire,
Dreaming the paradise of his own desire,
Discovering cities of enchanted sleep
Where'er the light shines on a rubbish heap.
III
Strange voyagers, what tales of noble deeds
Deep in your dim sea-weary eyes one reads!
Open the casket where your memories are,
And show each jewel, fashioned from a star;
For I would travel without sail or wind,
And so, to lift the sorrow from my mind,
Let your long memories of sea-days far fled
Pass o'er my spirit like a sail outspread.
What have you seen?
IV
"We have seen waves and stars,
And lost sea-beaches, and known many wars,
And notwithstanding war and hope and fear,
We were as weary there as we are here.
"The lights that on the violet sea poured down,
The suns that set behind some far-off town,
Lit in our hearts the unquiet wish to fly
Deep in the glimmering distance of the sky;
"The loveliest countries that rich cities bless,
Never contained the strange wild loveliness
By fate and chance shaped from the floating cloud —
And we were always sorrowful and proud!
"Desire from joy gains strength in weightier measure.
Desire, old tree who draw'st thy sap from pleasure,
Though thy bark thickens as the years pass by,
Thine arduous branches rise towards the sky;
"And wilt thou still grow taller, tree more fair
Than the tall cypress?
– Thus have we, with care,
"Gathered some flowers to please your eager mood,
Brothers who dream that distant things are good!
"We have seen many a jewel-glimmering throne;
And bowed to Idols when wild horns were blown
In palaces whose faery pomp and gleam
To your rich men would be a ruinous dream;
"And robes that were a madness to the eyes;
Women whose teeth and nails were stained with dyes;
Wise jugglers round whose neck the serpent winds – "
V
And then, and then what more?
VI
"O childish minds!
"Forget not that which we found everywhere,
From top to bottom of the fatal stair,
Above, beneath, around us and within,
The weary pageant of immortal sin.
"We have seen woman, stupid slave and proud,
Before her own frail, foolish beauty bowed;
And man, a greedy, cruel, lascivious fool,
Slave of the slave, a ripple in a pool;
"The martyrs groan, the headsman's merry mood;
And banquets seasoned and perfumed with blood;
Poison, that gives the tyrant's power the slip;
And nations amorous of the brutal whip;
"Many religions not unlike our own,
All in full flight for heaven's resplendent throne;
And Sanctity, seeking delight in pain,
Like a sick man of his own sickness vain;
"And mad mortality, drunk with its own power,
As foolish now as in a bygone hour,
Shouting, in presence of the tortured Christ:
'I curse thee, mine own Image sacrificed.'
"And silly monks in love with Lunacy,
Fleeing the troops herded by destiny,
Who seek for peace in opiate slumber furled —
Such is the pageant of the rolling world!"
VII
O bitter knowledge that the wanderers gain!
The world says our own age is little and vain;
For ever, yesterday, to-day, to-morrow,
'Tis horror's oasis in the sands of sorrow.
Must we depart? If you can rest, remain;
Part, if you must. Some fly, some cower in vain,
Hoping that Time, the grim and eager foe,
Will pass them by; and some run to and fro
Like the Apostles or the Wandering Jew;
Go where they will, the Slayer goes there too!
And there are some, and these are of the wise,
Who die as soon as birth has lit their eyes.
But when at length the Slayer treads us low,
We will have hope and cry, "'Tis time to go!"
As when of old we parted for Cathay
With wind-blown hair and eyes upon the bay.
We will embark upon the Shadowy Sea,
Like youthful wanderers for the first time free —
Hear you the lovely and funereal voice
That sings: O come all ye whose wandering joys
Are set upon the scented Lotus flower,
For here we sell the fruit's miraculous boon;
Come ye and drink the sweet and sleepy power
Of the enchanted, endless afternoon.
VIII
O Death, old Captain, it is time, put forth!
We have grown weary of the gloomy north;
Though sea and sky are black as ink, lift sail!
Our hearts are full of light and will not fail.
O pour thy sleepy poison in the cup!
The fire within the heart so burns us up
That we would wander Hell and Heaven through,
Deep in the Unknown seeking something new!
FROM THE FLOWERS OF EVIL
Translated by W. J. Robertson
BENEDICTION
When, by the sovran will of Powers Eternal,
The poet passed into this weary world,
His mother, filled with fears and doubts infernal,
Clenching her hands towards Heaven these curses hurled.
– "Why rather did I not within me treasure
"A knot of serpents than this thing of scorn?
"Accursed be the night of fleeting pleasure
"Whence in my womb this chastisement was borne!
"Since thou hast chosen me to be the woman
"Whose loathsome fruitfulness her husband shames,
"Who may not cast aside this birth inhuman,
"As one that flings love-tokens to the flames,
"The hatred that on me thy vengeance launches
"On this thwart creature I will pour in flood:
"So twist the sapling that its withered branches
"Shall never once put forth a cankered bud!"
Regorging thus the venom of her malice,
And misconceiving thy decrees sublime,
In deep Gehenna's gulf she fills the chalice
Of torments destined to maternal crime.
Yet, safely sheltered by his viewless angel,
The Childe forsaken revels in the Sun;
And all his food and drink is an evangel
Of nectared sweets, sent by the Heavenly One.
He communes with the clouds, knows the wind's voices,
And on his pilgrimage enchanted sings;
Seeing how like the wild bird he rejoices
The hovering Spirit weeps and folds his wings.
All those he fain would love shrink back in terror,
Or, boldened by his fearlessness elate,
Seek to seduce him into sin and error,
And flesh on him the fierceness of their hate.
In bread and wine, wherewith his soul is nourished,
They mix their ashes and foul spume impure;
Lying they cast aside the things he cherished,
And curse the chance that made his steps their lure.
His spouse goes crying in the public places:
"Since he doth choose my beauty to adore,
"Aping those ancient idols Time defaces
"I would regild my glory as of yore.
"Nard, balm and myrrh shall tempt till he desires me
"With blandishments, with dainties and with wine,
"Laughing if in a heart that so admires me
"I may usurp the sovranty divine!
"Until aweary of love's impious orgies,
"Fastening on him my fingers firm and frail,
"These claws, keen as the harpy's when she gorges,
"Shall in the secret of his heart prevail.
"Then, thrilled and trembling like a young bird captured,
"The bleeding heart shall from his breast be torn;
"To glut his maw my wanton hound, enraptured,
"Shall see me fling it to the earth in scorn."
Heavenward, where he beholds a throne resplendent,
The poet lifts his hands, devout and proud,
And the vast lightnings of a soul transcendent
Veil from his gaze awhile the furious crowd: —
"Blessed be thou, my God, that givest sorrow,
"Sole remedy divine for things unclean,
"Whence souls robust a healing virtue borrow,
"That tempers them for sacred joys serene!
"I know thou hast ordained in blissful regions
"A place, a welcome in the festal bowers,
"To call the poet with thy holy Legions,
"Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers.
"I know that Sorrow is the strength of Heaven,
"'Gainst which in vain strive ravenous Earth and Hell,
"And that his crown must be of mysteries woven
"Whereof all worlds and ages hold the spell.
"But not antique Palmyra's buried treasure,
"Pearls of the sea, rare metal, precious gem,
"Though set by thine own hand could fill the measure
"Of beauty for his radiant diadem;
"For this thy light alone, intense and tender,
"Flows from the primal source of effluence pure,
"Whereof all mortal eyes, though bright their splendour,
"Are but the broken glass and glimpse obscure."
SPLEEN ET IDÉAL.
ILL LUCK
To bear so vast a load of grief
Thy courage, Sisyphus, I crave!
My heart against the task is brave,
But Art is long and Time is brief.
For from Fame's proud sepulchral arches,
Towards a graveyard lone and dumb,
My sad heart, like a muffled drum,
Goes beating slow funereal marches.
– Full many a shrouded jewel sleeps
In dark oblivion, lost in deeps
Unknown to pick or plummet's sound:
Full many a weeping blossom flings
Her perfume, sweet as secret things,
In silent solitudes profound.
LE GUIGNON.
BEAUTY
My face is a marmoreal dream, O mortals!
And on my breast all men are bruised in turn,
So moulded that the poet's love may burn
Mute and eternal as the earth's cold portals.
Throned like a Sphinx unveiled in the blue deep,
A heart of snow my swan-white beauty muffles;
I hate the line that undulates and ruffles:
And never do I laugh and never weep.
The poets, prone beneath my presence towering
With stately port of proudest obelisks,
Worship with rites austere, their days devouring;
For I have charms to keep their love, pure disks
That make all things more beautiful and tender:
My large eyes, radiant with eternal splendour!
LA BEAUTÉ.
IDEAL LOVE
No, never can these frail ephemeral creatures,
The withered offspring of a worthless age,
These buskined limbs, these false and painted features,
The hunger of a heart like mine assuage.
Leave to the laureate of sickly posies
Gavami's hospital sylphs, a simpering choir!
Vainly I seek among those pallid roses
One blossom that allures my red desire.
Thou with my soul's abysmal dreams be blended,
Lady Macbeth, in crime superb and splendid,
A dream of Æschylus flowered in cold eclipse
Of Northern suns! Thou, Night, inspire my passion,
Calm child of Angelo, coiling in strange fashion
Thy large limbs moulded for a Titan's lips!
L'IDÉAL.
HYMN TO BEAUTY
Be thou from Hell upsprung or Heaven descended,
Beauty! thy look demoniac and divine
Pours good and evil things confusedly blended,
And therefore art thou likened unto wine.
Thine eye with dawn is filled, with twilight dwindles,
Like winds of night thou sprinklest perfumes mild;
Thy kiss, that is a spell, the child's heart kindles,
Thy mouth, a chalice, makes the man a child.
Fallen from the stars or risen from gulfs of error,
Fate dogs thy glamoured garments like a slave;
With wanton hands thou scatterest joy and terror,
And rulest over all, cold as the grave.
Thou tramplest on the dead, scornful and cruel,
Horror coils like an amulet round thine arms,
Crime on thy superb bosom is a jewel
That dances amorously among its charms.
The dazzled moth that flies to thee, the candle,
Shrivels and burns, blessing thy fatal flame;
The lover that dies fawning o'er thy sandal
Fondles his tomb and breathes the adored name.
What if from Heaven or Hell thou com'st, immortal
Beauty? O sphinx-like monster, since alone
Thine eye, thy smile, thy hand opens the portal
Of the Infinite I love and have not known.
What if from God or Satan be the evangel?
Thou my sole Queen! Witch of the velvet eyes!
Since with thy fragrance, rhythm and light, O Angel!
In a less hideous world time swiftlier flies.
HYMNE À LA BEAUTÉ.
EXOTIC FRAGRANCE
When, with closed eyes in the warm autumn night,
I breathe the fragrance of thy bosom bare,
My dream unfurls a clime of loveliest air,
Drenched in the fiery sun's unclouded light.
An indolent island dowered with heaven's delight,
Trees singular and fruits of savour rare,
Men having sinewy frames robust and spare,
And women whose clear eyes are wondrous bright.
Led by thy fragrance to those shores I hail
A charmed harbour thronged with mast and sail,
Still wearied with the quivering sea's unrest;
What time the scent of the green tamarinds
That thrills the air and fills my swelling breast
Blends with the mariners' song and the sea-winds.
PARFUM EXOTIQUE.
XXVIII SONNET
In undulant robes with nacreous sheen impearled
She walks as in some stately saraband;
Or like lithe snakes by sacred charmers curled
In cadence wreathing on the slender wand.
Calm as blue wastes of sky and desert sand
That watch unmoved the sorrows of this world;
With slow regardless sweep as on the strand
The long swell of the woven sea-waves swirled.
Her polished orbs are like a mystic gem,
And, while this strange and symbolled being links
The inviolate angel and the antique sphinx,
Insphered in gold, steel, light and diadem
The splendour of a lifeless star endows
With clear cold majesty the barren spouse.
MUSIC
Launch me, O music, whither on the soundless
Sea my star gleams pale!
I beneath cloudy cope or rapt in boundless
Æther set my sail;
With breast outblown, swollen by the wind that urges
Swelling sheets, I scale
The summit of the wave whose vexed surges
Night from me doth veil;
A labouring vessel's passions in my pulses
Thrill the shuddering sense;
The wind that wafts, the tempest that convulses,
O'er the gulf immense
Swing me. – Anon flat calm and clearer air
Glass my soul's despair!
LA MUSIQUE.
THE SPIRITUAL DAWN
When on some wallowing soul the roseate East
Dawns with the Ideal that awakes and gnaws,
By vengeful working of mysterious laws
An angel rises in the drowsed beast.
The inaccessible blue of the soul-sphere
To him whose grovelling dream remorse doth gall
Yawns wide as when the gulfs of space enthral.
So, heavenly Goddess, Spirit pure and clear,
Even on the reeking ruins of vile shame
Thy rosy vision, beautiful and bright,
For ever floats on my enlargëd sight.
Thus sunlight blackens the pale taper-flame;
And thus is thy victorious phantom one,
O soul of splendour, with the immortal Sun!
L'AUBE SPIRITUELLE.
