Baudelaire: His Prose and Poetry

Fair is the sun when first he flames above,Flinging his joy down in a happy beam;And happy he who can salute with loveThe sunset far more glorious than a dream.Flower, stream, and furrow! – I have seen them allIn the sun's eye swoon like one trembling heart —Though it be late let us with speed departTo catch at least one last ray ere it fall!But I pursue the fading god in vain,For conquering Night makes firm her dark domain,Mist and gloom fall, and terrors glide between,And graveyard odours in the shadow swim,And my faint footsteps on the marsh's rim,Bruise the cold snail and crawling toad unseen.

THE CORPSE

Remember, my Beloved, what thing we metBy the roadside on that sweet summer day;There on a grassy couch with pebbles set,A loathsome body lay.The wanton limbs stiff-stretched into the air,Steaming with exhalations vile and dank,In ruthless cynic fashion had laid bareThe swollen side and flank.On this decay the sun shone hot from heavenAs though with chemic heat to broil and bum,And unto Nature all that she had givenA hundredfold return.The sky smiled down upon the horror thereAs on a flower that opens to the day;So awful an infection smote the air,Almost you swooned away.The swarming flies hummed on the putrid side,Whence poured the maggots in a darkling stream,That ran along these tatters of life's prideWith a liquescent gleam.And like a wave the maggots rose and fell,The murmuring flies swirled round in busy strife:It seemed as though a vague breath came to swellAnd multiply with lifeThe hideous corpse. From all this living worldA music as of wind and water ran,Or as of grain in rhythmic motion swirledBy the swift winnower's fan.And then the vague forms like a dream died out,Or like some distant scene that slowly fallsUpon the artist's canvas, that with doubtHe only half recalls.A homeless dog behind the boulders layAnd watched us both with angry eyes forlorn,Waiting a chance to come and take awayThe morsel she had torn.And you, even you, will be like this drear thing,A vile infection man may not endure;Star that I yearn to! Sun that lights my spring!O passionate and pure!Yes, such will you be, Queen of every grace!When the last sacramental words are said;And beneath grass and flowers that lovely faceMoulders among the dead.Then, O Belovèd, whisper to the wormThat crawls up to devour you with a kiss,That I still guard in memory the dear formOf love that comes to this!

AN ALLEGORY

Here is a woman, richly clad and fair,Who in her wine dips her long, heavy hair;Love's claws, and that sharp poison which is sin,Are dulled against the granite of her skin.Death she defies, Debauch she smiles upon,For their sharp scythe-like talons every onePass by her in their all-destructive play;Leaving her beauty till a later day.Goddess she walks; sultana in her leisure;She has Mohammed's faith that heaven is pleasure,And bids all men forget the world's alarmsUpon her breast, between her open arms.She knows, and she believes, this sterile maid,Without whom the world's onward dream would fade,That bodily beauty is the supreme giftWhich may from every sin the terror lift.Hell she ignores, and Purgatory defies;And when black Night shall roll before her eyes,She will look straight in Death's grim face forlorn,Without remorse or hate – as one new-born.

THE ACCURSED

Like pensive herds at rest upon the sands,These to the sea-horizons turn their eyes;Out of their folded feet and clinging handsBitter sharp tremblings and soft languors rise.Some tread the thicket by the babbling stream,Their hearts with untold secrets ill at ease;Calling the lover of their childhood's dream,They wound the green bark of the shooting trees.Others like sisters wander, grave and slow,Among the rocks haunted by spectres thin,Where Antony saw as larvæ surge and flowThe veined bare breasts that tempted him to sin.Some, when the resinous torch of burning woodFlares in lost pagan caverns dark and deep,Call thee to quench the fever in their blood,Bacchus, who singest old remorse to sleep!Then there are those the scapular bedights,Whose long white vestments hide the whip's red stain,Who mix, in sombre woods on lonely nights,The foam of pleasure with the tears of pain.O virgins, demons, monsters, martyrs! yeWho scorn whatever actual appears;Saints, satyrs, seekers of Infinity,So full of cries, so full of bitter tears;Ye whom my soul has followed into hell,I love and pity, O sad sisters mine,Your thirsts unquenched, your pains no tongue can tell,And your great hearts, those urns of love divine!

LA BEATRICE

In a burnt, ashen land, where no herb grew,I to the winds my cries of anguish threw;And in my thoughts, in that sad place apart,Pricked gently with the poignard o'er my heart.Then in full noon above my head a cloudDescended tempest-swollen, and a crowdOf wild, lascivious spirits huddled there,The cruel and curious demons of the air,Who coldly to consider me began;Then, as a crowd jeers some unhappy man,Exchanging gestures, winking with their eyes —I heard a laughing and a whispering rise:"Let us at leisure contemplate this clown,This shadow of Hamlet aping Hamlet's frown,With wandering eyes and hair upon the wind.Is't not a pity that this empty mind,This tramp, this actor out of work, this droll,Because he knows how to assume a rôleShould dream that eagles and insects, streams and woods,Stand still to hear him chaunt his dolorous moods?Even unto us, who made these ancient things,The fool his public lamentation sings."With pride as lofty as the towering cloud,I would have stilled these clamouring demons loud,And turned in scorn my sovereign head awayHad I not seen – O sight to dim the day! —There in the middle of the troupe obsceneThe proud and peerless beauty of my Queen!She laughed with them at all my dark distress,And gave to each in turn a vile caress.

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 laveThe throat of man by travail long outworn,And his hot bosom is a sweeter graveOf 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 seemRare 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 wineFor skies fantastic and divine!Let us, like angels tortured bySome wild delirious phantasy,Follow the far-off mirage bornIn the blue crystal of the morn.And gently balanced on the wingOf the wild whirlwind we will, ride,Rejoicing with the joyous thing.My sister, floating side by side,Fly we unceasing whither gleamsThe 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 skiesThe 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 blendIn the twin mirrors of your soul and mine.And through the eve of rose and mystic blueA beam of love shall pass from me to you,Like a long sigh charged with a last farewell;And later still an angel, flinging wideThe gates, shall bring to life with joyful spellThe 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 palmsBring dreams of ecstasy and slumberous calmsTo 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 fireWent forth last night; their little ones at restEach on his mother's back, with his desireSet on the ready treasure of her breast.Laden with shining arms the men-folk treadBy the long wagons where their goods lie hidden;They watch the heaven with eyes grown weariëdOf 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 throngOf ever-wandering ones Whose calm eyes seeFamiliar realms of darkness yet to be.

FRANCISCÆ MEÆ LAUDES

Novis te cantabo chordis,O novelletum quod ludisIn solitudine cordis.Esto sertis implicata,O fœmina delicataPer quam solvuntur peccataSicut beneficum Lethe,Hauriam oscula de te,Quæ imbuta es magnete.Quum vitiorum tempestasTurbabat omnes semitas,Apparuisti, Deitas,Velut stella salutarisIn 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 mindHear 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 birthOf 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-paneAnd 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 stillOf summoning the spring-time with my will,Drawing the sun out of my heart, and thereWith burning thoughts making a summer air.

THE VOYAGE

IThe world is equal to the child's desireWho plays with pictures by his nursery fire —How vast the world by lamplight seems! How smallWhen 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 flightFor the embrasured heavens, and space, and light,Till one by one the stains her kisses madeIn biting cold and burning sunlight fade.But the true voyagers are they who partFrom all they love because a wandering heartDrives 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 starThey dream of change as warriors dream of war;And strange wild wishes never twice the same:Desires no mortal man can give a name.IIWe 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 anywhereWhere 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 soundCries: "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 seaThis drunken sailor whose ecstatic moodMakes 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 sleepWhere'er the light shines on a rubbish heap.IIIStrange voyagers, what tales of noble deedsDeep 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 fledPass 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 flyDeep in the glimmering distance of the sky;"The loveliest countries that rich cities bless,Never contained the strange wild lovelinessBy 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 fairThan 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 blownIn palaces whose faery pomp and gleamTo 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 – "VAnd 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!"VIIO 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 froLike 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 CathayWith 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 voiceThat sings: O come all ye whose wandering joysAre set upon the scented Lotus flower,For here we sell the fruit's miraculous boon;Come ye and drink the sweet and sleepy powerOf the enchanted, endless afternoon.VIIIO 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 upThat 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 chaliceOf 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 evangelOf 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 rejoicesThe 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 transcendentVeil 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 griefThy 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 sleepsIn dark oblivion, lost in deepsUnknown to pick or plummet's sound:Full many a weeping blossom flingsHer 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 burnMute 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 toweringWith stately port of proudest obelisks,Worship with rites austere, their days devouring;For I have charms to keep their love, pure disksThat 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 posiesGavami's hospital sylphs, a simpering choir!Vainly I seek among those pallid rosesOne 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 eclipseOf Northern suns! Thou, Night, inspire my passion,Calm child of Angelo, coiling in strange fashionThy 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 divinePours 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 jewelThat 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 sandalFondles his tomb and breathes the adored name.What if from Heaven or Hell thou com'st, immortalBeauty? O sphinx-like monster, since aloneThine eye, thy smile, thy hand opens the portalOf 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 hailA charmed harbour thronged with mast and sail,Still wearied with the quivering sea's unrest;What time the scent of the green tamarindsThat thrills the air and fills my swelling breastBlends with the mariners' song and the sea-winds.PARFUM EXOTIQUE.