Charles Baudelaire, His Life

Without these precautions the ecstasy is likely to turn into-nightmare. Pleasure changes to suffering, joy to terror; a terrible anguish seizes one by the heart and breaks one with its fantastically enormous weight, as though the sphinx of the pyramids, or the elephant of the king of Siam, had amused itself by flattening one out. At other times an icy cold is felt making the victim seem like marble up to the hips, like the king in the "Thousand and One Nights," half changed to a statue, whose wicked wife came every morning to beat the still supple shoulders.

Baudelaire relates two or three hallucinations of men of different temperaments, and one experienced by a woman in a small room hidden by a gilt trellis and festooned with flowers, which is easily recognised as the boudoir of the Hôtel Pimodan. He accompanies each vision with an analytical and moral commentary, through which his unconquerable repugnance for happiness obtained by such means is easily discernible. He counts as nothing the consideration of the help that genius can draw from the ideas suggested by intoxication of hashish. Firstly, these ideas are not so beautiful as one imagines, their charm comes chiefly from the extreme excitement in which the subject is. Then hashish, which produces these ideas, destroys at the same time the power of using them, for it reduces to nothing the will and plunges its victims in an ennui in which the mind becomes incapable of any effort or work, and from which it cannot escape except through the medium of another dose. "Lastly," he adds, "admitting the minute hypothesis of a temperament well enough balanced, strong enough to resist the evil effects of this perfidious drug, it is necessary to consider another fatal, terrible danger, which is that of habit. Those who have recourse to a poison to make them think, will soon find that they cannot think without poison. Picture to yourself the terrible fate of a man whose paralysed imagination no longer fulfils its functions without the aid of hashish or opium."

And, a little later, he makes his profession of faith in these noble terms: "But man is not so lacking in honest means of inspiration that he is obliged to invite the aid of the pharmacy or of sorcery; he has no need to sell his soul to pay for the intoxicating caresses and friendliness of the houris. What is the paradise that one buys at the price of eternal salvation?"

There follows the painting of a sort of Olympus placed on the arduous mount of spirituality where the muses of Raphael or of Mantegna, under the guidance of Apollo, surround with their rhythmical choirs the artist vowed to the cult of beauty and recompense him for his continuous efforts. "Beneath him," continues the author, "at the foot of the mountain, in the brambles and mud, the troop of men, the band of helots, simulate the grimaces of enjoyment, and yell out if the bite of poison is taken away from them; and the saddened poet says: 'These unfortunate beings who have neither fasted nor prayed, and who have refused to work out their own redemption, demand from black magic the means of elevation, with a sudden stroke, to a supernatural existence. Magic dupes them and kindles in them false happiness and light; whilst we, poets and philosophers, who have given new life to our souls by continued work and thought, by the assiduous exercise of the will and permanent nobility of intention, we have created for our pleasure a garden of real beauty. Confiding in the word which says faith can remove mountains, we have accomplished the only miracle which God has allowed.'"

After such an expression of faith it is difficult to believe that the author of the "Flowers of Evil," in spite of his satanical leanings, has often visited artificial paradises.

Succeeding the study on hashish is one on the subject of opium. But here Baudelaire had for his guidance a book, singularly celebrated in England, "Confessions of an English Opium Eater," by De Quincey, a distinguished Hellenist, a leading writer, and a man of great respectability, who has dared, with tragical candour, in a country the most hardened by cant in the world, to avow his passion for opium, to describe this passion, representing the phases, the intermittences, the relapses, the combats, the enthusiasms, the prostrations, the ecstasies and the phantasmagoria followed by inexpressible anguish. De Quincey, incredible as it may seem, had, augmenting little by little each dose, come to taking eight thousand drops a day. This, however, did not prevent him from living till the age of seventy-five, for he only died in the month of December 1859, making the doctors, to whom, in a fit of humour, he had mockingly left his corpse as a subject for scientific experiment, wait a long time. This habit did not prevent him from publishing a crowd of literary and learned works in which nothing announced the fatal influence which he himself described as "the black idol." The dénouement of the book leaves it understood that only with superhuman efforts was the author brought to the state of self-correction; but that could only have been a sacrifice to morals and conventions, like the recompense of virtue and the punishment of crime at the end of a melodrama, final impenitence being a bad example. And De Quincey pretends that, after seventeen years of use and eight years of abuse of opium, he has been able to renounce this dangerous substance! It is unnecessary to discourage the theriakis of good-will. But what of the love, however expressed, in the lyrical invocation to the brown liqueur?

"O just, subtle, and all-conquering opium! thou who, to the hearts of rich and poor alike, for the wounds that will never heal, and for the pangs of grief that 'tempt the spirit to rebel' bringest an assuaging balm; – eloquent opium! that with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath, pleadest effectually for relenting pity, and through one night's heavenly sleep callest back to the guilty man the visions of his infancy, and hands washed pure from blood; – O just and righteous opium! that to the chancery of dreams summonest, for the triumphs of despairing innocence, false witnesses; and confoundest perjury; and dost reverse the sentences of unrighteous judges; – thou buildest upon the bosom of darkness, out of the fantastic imagery of the brain, cities and temples, beyond the art of Phidias and Praxiteles – beyond the splendours of Babylon and Hekatompylos; and, 'from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,' callest into sunny light the faces of long-buried beauties, and the blessed household countenances, cleansed from the 'dishonours of the grave.' Thou only givest these gifts to man; and thou hast the keys of Paradise, O just, subtle, and mighty opium!"

Baudelaire does not translate De Quincey's book entirely. He takes from it the most salient parts, of which he writes in an analysis intermingled with digressions and philosophical reflections, in such a way that he presents the entire work in an abridgment. Nothing is more curious than the biographical details which open these confessions. They show the flight of the scholar to escape from the tyrannies of his tutors, his miserable and starving life in the great desert of London, his sojourn in the lodgings turned into a garret by the negligence of the proprietor. We read of his liaison with a little half-idiot servant, Ann, a poor child, sad violet of the highways, innocent and virginal so far; his return in grace to his family and his becoming possessed of a fortune, considerable enough to allow him to give himself up entirely to his favourite studies in a charming cottage, in company with a noble woman, whom this Orestes of opium called his Electra. For, after his neuralgic pains, he had got into that ineradicable habit of taking the poison of which he absorbed, without disastrous results, the enormous quantity of forty grains a day.

To the most striking visions which shone with the blue and silver of Paradise or Elysium succeeded others more sombre than Erebus, to which one can apply the frightful lines of the poet:

"As when some great painter dipsHis pen in gloom of earthquake and eclipse."

De Quincey, who was a precocious and distinguished humanist – he knew both Greek and Latin at the age of ten – had always taken great pleasure in reading Livy, and the words "Consul Romanus" resounded in his ears like a magical and peremptorily irresistible formula. These five syllables struck upon his ear like the blasts of trumpets, sounding triumphal fanfares, and when, in his dreams, multitudes of enemies struggled on a field of battle lighted with livid glimmerings, with the rattling of guns and heavy tramping, like the surge of distant waters, suddenly a mysterious voice would cry out these dominating words: "Consul Romanus." A great silence would fall, oppressed by anxious waiting, and the consul would appear mounted on a white horse, in the midst of a great crowd, like the Marius of the "Batailles des Cimbres" of Decamps, and, with a fatidical gesture, decide the victory.

At other times, people seen in reality would be mixed up in his dreams, and would haunt them like obstinate spectres not to be chased away by any formula of exorcism.

One day, in the year 1813, a Malay, of a yellow and bilious colour, with sad, home-sick eyes, coming from London and seeking some haven, knowing not one word of any European language, knocked to see if he could rest a while, at the door of the cottage. Not wishing to fall short in the eyes of his domestics and neighbours, De Quincey spoke to him in Greek; the Asiatic replied in Malay, and his honour as a linguist was saved. After having given him some money, the master of the cottage, moved by the charity which causes a smoker to offer a cigar to a poor devil whom he supposes has long been without tobacco, gave the Malay a large piece of opium, which the man swallowed in a mouthful. There was enough to kill seven or eight unaccustomed people, but the yellow-skinned man was in the habit of taking it, for he went away with signs of great satisfaction and gratitude. He was not seen again, at least in the flesh, but he became one of the most assiduous frequenters of De Quincey's visions. The Malay of the saffron face and the strangely black eyes was a kind of genus of the extreme Orient who had the keys of India, Japan, China, and other countries of repute in a chimerical and impossible distance. As one obeys a guide whom one has not called, but whom one must follow by one of those fatalities that a dream admits of, De Quincey, in the steps of the Malay, plunged into regions of fabulous antiquity and inexpressible strangeness that caused him the profoundest terror. "I know not," says he in his "Confessions," "if others share my feelings on this point; but I have often thought that, if I were compelled to forgo England, and to live in China, among Chinese manners and methods and scenery, I should go mad… A young Chinese seems to me an antediluvian man renewed. … In China, over and above what it has in common with the rest of Southern Asia, I am terrified by the modes of life, by the manners, by the barrier of utter abhorrence placed between myself and them, by counter-sympathies deeper than I can analyse. I could sooner live with lunatics, with vermin, with crocodiles or snakes."

With malicious irony, the Malay, who seemed to understand the repugnance of the opium-eater, took care to lead him to the centre of great towns, to the ivory towers, to rivers full of junks crossed by bridges in the form of dragons, to streets encumbered with an innumerable population of baboons, lifting their heads with obliquely set eyes, and moving their tails like rats, murmuring, with forced reverence, complimentary mono-syllables.

The third and last part of the dreams of an opium-eater has a lamentable title, which, however, is well justified, "Suspiria de profundis." In one of these visions appeared three unforgettable figures, mysteriously terrible like the Grecian "Moires" and the "Mothers" of the second "Faust." These are the followers of Levana, the austere goddess who takes up the new-born babe and perfects it by sorrow. As there were three Graces, three Fates, three Furies, three Muses in the primitive ages, so there were three goddesses of sorrow; they are our Notre-Dame des Tristesses. The eldest of the three sisters is called Mater lacrymarum, or Our Lady of Tears; the second Mater suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs; the third and youngest, Mater tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness, the most redoubtable of all, and of whom the strongest cannot dream without a secret terror. These mournful spectres do not speak the language of mortals; they weep, they sigh, and make terrible gestures in the shadows. Thus they express their unknown sorrows, their nameless anguish, the suggestions of solitary despair, all that there is of suffering, bitterness, and sorrow in the depths of the human soul. Man ought to take warning from these initiators: "Thus will he see things that ought not to be seen, sights which are abominable, and unspeakable secrets; thus will he read the ancient truths, the sad, great, and terrible truths."

One can imagine that Baudelaire did not spare De Quincey the reproaches he addressed to all those who sought to attain the supernatural by material means; but, in regard to the beauty of the pictures painted by the illustrious and poetical dreamer, he showed him great good will and admiration.

About this time Baudelaire left Paris and pitched his tent in Brussels. One must not presume that this journey was taken with any political idea, but merely from the desire of a more tranquil and reposeful life, far away from the distractions and excitements of Paris. This change does not appear to have been a particularly profitable one for him. He worked little at Brussels, and his papers contain only sketchy notes, summaries almost hieroglyphical, which he alone could resolve. His health, instead of improving, was impaired, more deeply than he himself was aware, as the climate did not agree with him. The first symptoms manifested themselves in a certain slowness of speech, and a more and more marked hesitation in the choice of his words; but, as Baudelaire often expressed himself in a solemn and sententious way, one did not take much notice of this embarrassment in speech, which was the preface to the terrible malady that carried him off.

The rumour of Baudelaire's death spread in Paris with the winged rapidity of bad news, faster than an electric current along its wire. Baudelaire was still living, but the news, though false, was only premature; he could not recover from the attack. Brought back from Brussels by his family and friends, he lived some months, unable to speak, unable to write, as paralysis had broken the connecting thread between thought and speech. Thought lived in him always – one could see that from the expression of his eyes; but it was a prisoner, and dumb, without any means of communication, in the dungeon of clay which would only open in the tomb. What good is it to go into the details of this sad end? It is not a happy way to die; it is sorrowful, for the survivors, to see so fine and fruitful an intelligence pass away, to lose in a more and more deserted path of life a companion of youth.

Besides the "Flowers of Evil," translations of Edgar Poe, the "Artificial Paradises," and art criticisms, Baudelaire left a little book of "poems in prose" inserted at various periods in journals and reviews, which soon became without interest for vulgar readers and forced the poet, in his noble obstinacy, which would allow of no concession, to take the series to a more enterprising or literary paper. This is the first time that these pieces, scattered and difficult to find, are bound in one volume, nor will they be the least of the poet's titles to the regard of posterity.

In the short Preface addressed to Arsène Houssaye, which precedes the "Petits poèmes en prose," Baudelaire relates how the idea of employing this hybrid form, floating between verse and prose, came to him.

"I have a little confession to make to you. It was in turning over, for the twentieth time, the famous 'Gaspard de la nuit' of Aloysius Bertrand (a book known to me, to you, and several of our friends – has it not the right to be called famous?) that the idea came to me to attempt something analogous and to apply to the description of modern life, or rather to a modern and more abstract life, the process that he has applied to the painting of an ancient time, so strangely picturesque.

"Who among us, in these days of ambition, has not dreamt of the miracle of poetical, musical prose, without rhythm, without rhyme, supple enough and apt enough to adapt itself to the movements of the soul, to the swaying of a dream, to the sudden throbs of conscience?"

It is unnecessary to say that nothing resembles "Gaspard de la nuit" less than the "Poems in Prose." Baudelaire himself saw this after he commenced work, and he spoke of an accident, of which any other than he would have been proud, but which only humiliated a mind which looked upon the accomplishment of exactly what it had intended as an honour.

We have seen that Baudelaire always claimed to direct his inspiration according to his own will, and to introduce infallible mathematics into his art. He blamed himself for producing anything but that upon which he had resolved, even though it is, as in the present case, an original and powerful work.

Our poetical language, it must be acknowledged, in spite of the valiant effort of the new school to render it flexible and malleable, hardly lends itself to rare and subtle detail, especially when the subject is la vie moderne, familiar or luxurious. Without having, as at one time, a horror for the calculated word and a love of circumlocution, French verse, by its very construction, refuses particularly significant expressions and if forced into direct statement, immediately becomes hard, rugged, and laborious. "The Poems in Prose" came very opportunely to supply this deficiency, and in this form, which demands perfect art and where each word must be thrown, before being employed, into scales more easy to weigh down than those of the "Peseurs d'or" of Quintin Metsys – for it is necessary to have the standard, the weights, and the balance – Baudelaire has shown a precious side of his delicate and bizarre talent. He has been able to approach the almost inexpressible and to render the fugitive nuances which float between sound and colour, and those thoughts which resemble arabesque motifs or themes of musical phrases. It is not only to the physical nature, but to the secret movements of the soul, to capricious melancholy, to nervous hallucinations that this form is aptly applied. The author of the "Flowers of Evil" has drawn from it marvellous effects, and one is sometimes surprised that the language carries one through the transparencies of a dream, in the blue distances, marks out a ruined tower, a clump of trees, the summit of a mountain, and shows one things impossible to describe, which, until now, have never been expressed in words. This should be one of the glories, if not the greatest, of Baudelaire, to bring within the range of style a series of things, sensations, and effects unnamed by Adam, the great nomenclator. A writer can be ambitious of no more beautiful title, and this the author of the "Poems in prose" undoubtedly merits.

It is very difficult, without writing at great length – and, even then, it is better to direct the reader straight to the poems themselves – to give a just idea of these compositions; pictures, medallions, bas-reliefs, statuettes, enamels, pastels, cameos which follow each other rather like the vertebrae in the spine of a serpent. One is able to pick out some of the rings, and the pieces join themselves together, always living, having each its own soul writhing convulsively towards an inaccessible ideal.

Before closing this Introduction, which, although already too long – for we have simply chased through the work of the author and friend whose talent we endeavour to explain – it is necessary to quote the titles of the "Poems in Prose" – very superior in intensity, concentration, profoundness, and elegance to the delicate fantasies of "Gaspard de la nuit," which Baudelaire proposed to take as models. Among the fifty pieces which comprise the collection, each different in tone and composition, we will number "Le Gâteau, "La Chambre double," "Le Foules," "Les Veuves," "Le vieux saltimbanque," "Une Hémisphère dans une chevelure," "L'Invitation au voyage," "La Belle Dorothée," "Une Mort héroïque," "Le Thyrse," Portraits de maîtresses," "Le Désir de peindre," "Un Cheval de race" and especially "Les Bienfaits de la lune," an adorable poem in which the poet expresses, with magical illumination, what the English painter Millais has missed so completely in his "Eve of St. Agnes" – the descent of the nocturnal star with its phosphoric blue light, its grey of iridescent mother-of-pearl, its mist traversed by rays in which atoms of silver beat like moths. From the top of her stairway of clouds, the Moon leans down over the cradle of a sleeping child, bathing it in her baneful and splendid light; she dowers the sweet pale head like a fairy god-mother, and murmurs in its ear: "Thou shalt submit eternally to the influence of my kiss, thou shalt be beautiful after my fashion. Thou shalt love what I love and those that love me: the waters, the clouds, the silence, the night, the great green sea, the shapeless and multiform waters, the place where thou art not, the lover whom thou knowest not, the prodigious flowers, the perfumes that trouble the mind, the cats which swoon and groan like women in hoarse or gentle voices."

We know of no other analogy to this perfect piece than the poetry of Li-tai-pe, so well translated by Judith Walter, in which the Empress of China draws, among the rays, on the stairway of jade made brilliant by the moon, the folds of her white satin robe. A lunatique only is able to understand the moon and her mysterious charm.

When we listen to the music of Weber we experience at first a sensation of magnetic sleep, a sort of appeasement which separates us without any shock from real life. Then in the distance sounds a strange note which makes us listen attentively. This note is like a sigh from the supernatural world, like the voice of the invisible spirits which call us. Oberon just puts his hunting-horn to his mouth and the magic forest opens, stretching out into blue vistas peopled with all the fantastic folk described by Shakespeare in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Titania herself appears in the transparent robe of silver gauze.

The reading of the "Poems in Prose" has often produced in us these impressions; a phrase, a word – one only – bizarrely chosen and placed, evoke for us an unknown world of forgotten and yet friendly faces. They revive the memories of early life, and present a mysterious choir of vanished ideas, murmuring in undertones among the phantoms of things apart from the realities of life. Other phrases, of a morbid tenderness, seem like music whispering consolation for unavowed sorrows and irremediable despair. But it is necessary to beware, for such things as these make us homesick, like the "Ranz des vaches" of the poor Swiss lansquenet in the German ballad, in garrison at Strasbourg, who swam across the Rhine, was retaken and shot "for having listened too much to the sound of the horn of the Alps."

THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.

February 20th, 1868.

SELECTED POEMS OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

DONE INTO ENGLISH VERSE

BY GUY THORNEEXOTIC PERFUME(Parfum exotique)With eve and Autumn in mine eyes confest,I breathe an incense from thy heart of fire,And happy hill-sides tired men desireUnfold their glory in the weary West.O lazy Isle! where each exotic treeIs hung with delicate fruits, and slender boysMingle with maidens in a dance of joysThat knows not shame, where all are young and free.Yes I thy most fragrant breasts have led me homeTo this thronged harbour; and at last I knowWhy searching sailors venture on the foam…– 'Tis that they may to Tamarisk Island go.For there old slumberous sea-chants fill the airLaden with spices, and the world is fair.THE MURDERER'S WINE(Le vin de l'assassin)My wife is stiffened into wax.– Now I can drink my fill.Her yellings tore my heart like hooks,They were so keen and shrill.'Tis a King's freedom that I knowSince that loud voice is still.The day is tender blue and gold,The sky is clear above …Just such a summer as we hadWhen first I fell in love.… I'm a King now! Such royal thoughtsWithin me stir and move!I killed her; but I could not slakeMy burning lava-waveOf hideous thirst – far worse than thatOf some long-tortured slave —If I had wine enough to fillHer solitary, deep grave.In slime and dark her body lies;It echoed as it fell.(I will remember this no more.)Her tomb no man can tell.I cast great blocks of stone on her,The curb-stones of the well.We swore a thousand oaths of love;Absolved we cannot beNor ever reconciled, as whenWe both lived happily;… 'Twas evening on a darkling roadWhen the mad thing met me.We all are mad, this I well think.… The madness of my wifeWas to come, tired and beautiful,To a madman with a knife!I loved her far too much, 'twas whyI hurried her from life.I am alone among my friends,And of our sodden crowdNo single drunkard understandsI sit apart and vowed.They do not weave all night, and throwWine-shuttles through a shroud!True love has black enchantments; chainsThat rattle, and damp fears;Wan phials of poison, dead men's bones,And horrible salt tears.Of this the iron-bound drunkard knowsNothing, nor nothing hears.I am alone. My wife is dead,And dead-drunk will I beThis self-same night, a clod on earthWith naught to trouble me.A dog I'll be, in a long dog-sleep,Oblivious and free!The chariot with heavy wheelsComes rumbling through the night.Crushed stones and mud are on its wheels,It is a thing of might!The wain of retribution movesSlowly, as is most right.It comes, to crack my guilty headOr crush my belly through,I care not who the driver is;God and the devil too– Sitting side by side – can do no moreThan that they needs must do!MUSIC(La Musique)Music can lead me far, and farO'er mystical sad seas,Where burns my pale, high-hanging starAmong the mysteriesOf Pleiades.My lungs are taut of sweet salt air;The pregnant sail-cloths climbThe long, gloom-gathering ocean stair.I don the chord-shot cloak of TimeWhile the waves chime!Fierce winds and sombre tempests comeAnd bludgeon heavilyAll our vibrating timbers … drumMost passionately. O Sea!Liberate me!So shall thy mighty void expressBoth depths and surface. ThereOpens thy magic mirror; men confessTo Thee their sick despair… No otherwhere.THE GAME(Le jeu)In faded chairs old courtesansWith painted eyebrows leer.The stones and metal rattle inEach dry and withering ear,As lackadaisical they loll,And preen themselves, and peer.Their mumbling gums and lipless masks– Or lead-white lips – are prestAround the table of green cloth;And withered hands, possestOf Hell's own fever, vainly searchIn empty purse or breast.Beneath the low, stained ceiling hangEnormous lamps, which shineOn the sad foreheads of great poetsGlutted with things divine,Who throng this ante-room of hellTo find the anodyne.I see these things as in a dream,With the clairvoyant eye,And in a cottier of the denA crouching man descry;A silent, cold, and envying manWho watches. It is I!I envy those old harlots' greedAnd gloomy gaiety;The gripping passion of the game,The fierce avidityWith which men stake their honour forA ruined chastity.I dare not envy many a man:Who runs his life-race well;Whose brave, undaunted peasant bloodDeath's menace cannot quell.Abhorring nothingness, and strongUpon the lip of Hell.THE FALSE MONK(Le mauvais moine)Upon the tall old cloister walls there wereSome painted frescoes showing Truth; so we,Seeing them thus so holy and so fair,Might for a space forget austerity.For when the Lord Christ's seeds were blossoming,Full many a simple, pious brother foundDeath but a painted phantom with no sting,– And took for studio a burial-ground.But my soul is a sepulchre, where I,A false Franciscan, dwell eternally,And no walls glow with pictured mysteries.When shall I rise from living death, to takeMy pain as rich material, and makeWork for my hands, with pleasure for mine eyes?AN IDEAL OF LOVE(L'Idéal)I hate those beauties in old prints,Those faded, simpering, slippered pets;Vignetted in a room of chintz,And clacking silly castanets.I leave Gavarni all his dolls,His sickly harems, pale and wan,The beauties of the hospitalsI do not wish to look upon.Red roses are the roses real!Among the pale and virginalSad flowers, I find not my ideal… Vermilion or cardinal!The panther-women hold my heart —Macbeth's dark wife, of men accurst,… A dream of Æschylus thou art,'Tis such as thou shall quench my thirst!… Or Michelangelo's daughter, Night,Who broods on her own beauty, sheFor whose sweet mouth the Giants fight,Queen of my ideal love shall be!THE SOUL OF WINE(L'Âme du vin)Vermilion the seals of my prison,Cold crystal its walls, and my voiceSingeth loud through the evening; a visionThat bid'st thee rejoice!Disinherited! outcast! – I call theeTo pour, and my song in despiteOf the World shall enfold and enthrall theePulsating with light!Long labours, fierce ardours, and blazingOf suns on far hill-sides, and strifeOf the toilers have gone to the raisingOf me into life!I forget not their pains, for I renderRewards; yea! in full-brimming bowlTo those who have helped to engenderMy passionate soul!My joys are unnumbered, unending,When I rise from chill cellars to laveThe hot throat of Labour, ascendingAs one from the grave.The Sabbath refrains that thou hearest,The whispering hope in my breast,Shalt call thee, dishevelled and dearest!To ultimate rest.The woman thy youthfulness captured,Who bore thee a son – this thy wife —I will give back bright eyes, which enrapturedShall see thee as Life!Thy son, a frail athlete, I dowerWith all my red strength, and the toilOf his life shall be king-like in power,… Anointed with oil!To thee I will bow me, thou fairestGold grain from the Sower above.Ambrosia I wedded, and rarestThe fruits of our love.High God round His feet shall discoverThe verses I made, in the hoursWhen I was thy slave and thy lover,Press upwards like flowers!THE INVOCATION(Prière)Glory to thee, Duke Satan. ReignO'er kings and lordly state.Prince of the Powers of the AirAnd Hell; most desolate,Dreaming Thy long, remorseful dreamsAnd reveries of hate!O let me lie near thee, and sleepBeneath the ancient TreeOf Knowledge, which shall shadow theeBeelzebub, and me!While Temples of strange sins uponThy brows shall builded be.THE CAT(Le Chat)Most lovely, lie along my heart,Within your paw your talons fold,Let me find secrets in your eyes —Your eyes of agate rimmed with gold!For when my languid fingers moveAlong your rippling back, and allMy senses tingle with delightIn softness so electrical,My wife's face flashes in my mind;Your cold, mysterious glances bring,Sweet beast, strange memories of hersThat cut and flagellate and sting!From head to foot a subtle airSurrounds her body's dusky bloom,And there attends her everywhereA faint and dangerous perfume.THE GHOST(Le Revenant)With some dark angel's flaming eyesThat through the shadows burn,Gliding towards thee, noiselessly,– 'Tis thus I shall return.Such kisses thou shalt have of meAs the pale moon-rays give,And cold caresses of the snakes,That in the trenches live.And when the livid morning comes,All empty by thy side,And bitter cold, thou'lt find my place;Yea, until eventide.Others young love to their embraceBy tenderness constrain,But over all thy youth and loveI will by terror reign.LES LITANIES DE SATANO Satan, most wise and beautiful of all the angels,God, betrayed by destiny and bereft of praise,Have pity on my long misery!Prince of Exile, who hast been trodden down and vanquished,But who ever risest up again more strong,O Satan, have pity on my long misery!Thou who knowest all; Emperor of the Kingdomsthat are below the earth,Healer of human afflictions,Have pity on my long misery!Thou who in love givest the taste of ParadiseTo the Leper, the Outcast and those who are accursed,O Satan, have pity on my long misery!O thou who, of Death, thy strong old mistress,Hast begotten the sweet madness of Hope,Have pity on my long misery!Thou who givest outlaws serenity, and the prideWhich damns a whole people thronging round the scaffold,O Satan, have pity on my long misery!Thou who knowest in what corners of the envious earthThe jealous God hath hidden the precious stones,Have pity on my long misery!Thou whose clear eye knoweth the deep arsenalsWherein the buried metals are sleeping,O Satan, have pity on my long misery!Thou whose great hand hideth the precipiceAnd concealeth the abyss from those who walk in sleep,Have pity on my long misery!Thou who by enchantment makest supple the bonesof the drunkardWhen he falleth under the feet of the horses,O Satan, have pity on my long misery!Thou who didst teach weak men and those who sufferTo mix saltpetre and sulphur,Have pity on my long misery!Thou, O subtle of thought! who settest thy maskUpon the brow of the merciless rich man,O Satan, have pity on my long misery!Thou who fillest the eyes and hearts of maidensWith longing for trifles and the love of forbidden things,Have pity on my long misery!Staff of those in exile, beacon of those who contrivestrange matters,Confessor of conspirators and those who are hanged,O Satan, have pity on my long misery!Sire by adoption of those whom God the FatherHas hunted in anger from terrestrial paradise,Have pity on my long misery!ILL-STARRED!(Le Guignon)To raise this dreadful burden as I oughtIt needs thy courage, Sisyphus, for IWell know how long is Art, and Life how short.– My soul is willing, but the moments fly.Towards some remote churchyard without a nameIn forced funereal marches my steps come;Far from the storied sepulchres of fame.– My heart is beating like a muffled drum.Full many a flaming jewel shrouded deepIn shadow and oblivion, lies asleep,Safe from the toiling mattocks of mankind.Sad faery blossoms secret scents distilIn trackless solitudes; nor ever willThe lone anemone her lover find!

Note. – It seems fairly obvious – and perhaps this is a discovery – that Baudelaire must have read Gray's "Elegy." As we know, he was a first-class English scholar, and whether he plagiarised or unconsciously remembered the most perfect stanza that Gray ever wrote, one can hardly doubt that the gracious music of the French was borrowed from or influenced by the no less splendid rhythm of —