Flowers of Evil - Charles Baudelaire (guided reading books TXT) 📗

amidst a haze of dirty scents,

 

Those fatal remnants of a sick man’s room

The gallant knave of hearts and queen of spades

Relate their ancient amorous escapades.

 

Obsession

 

Great forests, you alarm me like a mighty fane;

Like organ-tones you roar, and in our hearts of stone,

Where ancient sobs vibrate, O halls of endless pain!

The answering echoes of your ” De Profundis ” moan.

 

I hate thee, Ocean! hate thy tumults and thy throbs,

My spirit finds them in himself. This bitter glee

Of vanquished mortals, full of insults and of sobs,

I hear it in the mighteous laughter of the sea.

 

O starless night! thy loveliness my soul inhales,

Without those starry rays which speak a language known,

For I desire the dark, the naked and the lone.

 

But e’en those darknesses themselves to me are veils,

Where live and, by the millions ‘neath my eyelids prance,

Long, long departed Beings with familiar glance.

 

Magnetic Horror

 

“Beneath this sky, so livid and strange,

Tormented like thy destiny,

What thoughts within thy spirit range

Themselves? O libertine reply.”

 

With vain desires, for ever torn

Towards the uncertain, and the vast,

And yet, like Ovid I’ll not mourn

Who from his Roman Heaven was cast.

 

O heavens, turbulent as the streams,

In you I mirror forth my pride!

Your clouds, which clad in mourning, glide,

 

Are the hearses of my dreams,

And in your illusion lies the hell,

Wherein my heart delights to dwell.

 

The Lid

 

Where’er he may rove, upon sea or on land,

‘Neath a fiery sky or a pallid sun,

Be he Christian or one of Cythera’s band,

Opulent Croesus or beggar ‘tis one,

 

Whether citizen, peasant or vagabond he,

Be his little brain active or dull. Everywhere,

Man feels the terror of mystery,

And looks upon high with a glance full of fear.

 

The Heaven above, that oppressive wall;

A ceiling lit up in some lewd music hall,

Where the actors step forth on a blood-red soil

 

The eremite’s hope, and the dread of the sot,

The Sky; that black lid of a mighty pot,

Where, vast and minute, human Races boil.

 

Bertha’s Eyes

 

The loveliest eyes you can scorn with your wondrous glow:

O! beautiful childish eyes there abounds in your light,

A something unspeakably tender and good as the night:

O! eyes! over me your enchanting darkness let flow.

 

Large eyes of my child! O Arcana profoundly adored!

Ye resemble so closely those caves in the magical creek;

Where within the deep slumbering shade of some petrified

peak,

There shines, undiscovered, the gems of a dazzling hoard.

 

My child has got eyes so profound and so dark and so vast,

Like thee! oh unending Night, and thy mystical shine:

Their flames are those thoughts that with Love and with

 

Faith combine,

And sparkle deep down in the depths so alluring or chaste.

 

The Set of the Romantic Sun

 

How beauteous the sun as it rises supreme,

Like an explosion that greets us from above,

Oh, happy is he that can hail with love,

Its decline, more glorious far, than a dream.

 

I saw flower, furrow, and brook. … I recall

How they swooned like a tremulous heart ‘neath the sun,

Let us haste to the sky-line, ‘tis late, let us run,

At least to catch one slanting ray ere it fall.

 

But the god, who eludes me, I chase all in vain,

The night, irresistible, plants its domain,

Black mists and vague shivers of death it forbodes;

 

While an odour of graves through the darkness spreads,

And on the swamp’s margin, my timid foot treads

Upon slimy snails, and on unseen toads.

 

Meditation

 

Be wise, O my Woe, seek thy grievance to drown,

Thou didst call for the night, and behold it is here,

An atmosphere sombre, envelopes the town,

To some bringing peace and to others a care.

 

Whilst the manifold souls of the vile multitude,

‘Neath the lash of enjoyment, that merciless sway,

Go plucking remorse from the menial brood,

 

From them far, O my grief, hold my hand, come this way.

Behold how they beckon, those years, long expired,

From Heaven, in faded apparel attired,

How Regret, smiling, foams on the waters like yeast;

 

Its arches of slumber the dying sun spreads,

And like a long winding-sheet dragged to the East,

Oh, hearken Beloved, how the Night softly treads!

 

To a Passer-by

 

Around me thundered the deafening noise of the street,

In mourning apparel, portraying majestic distress,

With queenly ringers, just lifting the hem of her dress,

A stately woman passed by with hurrying feet.

 

Agile and noble, with limbs of perfect poise.

Ah, how I drank, thrilled through like a Being insane,

In her look, a dark sky, from whence springs forth the

hurricane,

There lay but the sweetness that charms, and the joy that

destroys.

 

A flash then the night… . O loveliness fugitive!

Whose glance has so suddenly caused me again to live,

Shall I not see you again till this life is o’er!

 

Elsewhere, far away … too late, perhaps never more,

For I know not whither you fly, nor you, where I go,

O soul that I would have loved, and that you know!

 

Illusionary Love

 

When I behold thee wander by, my languorous love,

To songs of viols which throughout the dome resound,

Harmonious and stately as thy footsteps move,

Bestowing forth the languor of thy glance profound.

 

When I regard thee, glowing in the gaslight rays,

Thy pallid brow embellished by a charm obscure,

Here where the evening torches light the twilight haze,

Thine eyes attracting me like those of a portraiture,

 

I say How beautiful she is! how strangely rich!

A mighty memory, royal and commanding tower,

A garland : and her heart, bruised like a ruddy peach,

Is ripe like her body for Love’s sapient power.

 

Art thou, that spicy Autumn-fruit with taste supreme?

Art thou a funeral vase inviting tears of grief?

Aroma causing one of Eastern wastes to dream;

A downy cushion, bunch of flowers or golden sheaf?

 

I know that there are eyes, most melancholy ones,

Wherein no precious secret deeply hidden lies,

Resplendent shrines, devoid of relics, sacred stones,

More empty, more profound than ye yourselves, O skies?

 

Yea, does thy semblance, not alone for me suffice,

To kindle senses which the cruel truth abhor?

All one to me! thy folly or thy heart of ice,

Decoy or mask, all hail! thy beauty I adore!

 

Mists and Rains

 

O last of Autumn and Winter steeped in haze,

O sleepy seasons! you I love and praise,

Because around my heart and brain you twine

A misty winding-sheet and a nebulous shrine.

 

On that great plain, where frigid blasts abound,

Where through the nights, so long, the vane whirls round,

My soul, more free than in the springtime soft,

Will stretch her raven wings and soar aloft,

 

Unto an heart with gloomy things replete,

On which remain the frosts of former Times,

O pallid seasons, mistress of our climes

 

As your pale shadows nothing is so sweet,

Unless it be, on a moonless night a-twain,

On some chance couch to soothe to sleep our Pain.

 

The Wine of Lovers

 

To-day the Distance is superb,

Without bridle, spur or curb,

Let us mount on the back of wine

For Regions fairy and divine!

 

Let’s, like two angels tortured by

Some dark, delirious phantasy,

Pursue the distant mirage drawn

O’er the blue crystal of the dawn!

 

And gently balanced on the wing

Of some obliging whirlwind, we

In equal rapture revelling

 

My sister, side by side will flee,

Without repose, nor truce, where gleams

The golden Paradise of my dreams!

 

Condemned Women

 

Like thoughtful cattle on the yellow sands reclined,

They turn their eyes towards the horizon of the sea,

Their feet towards each other stretched, their hands

entwined,

They tell of gentle yearning, frigid misery.

 

A few, with heart-confiding faith of old, imbued

Amid the darkling grove, where silver streamlets flow,

Unfold to each their loves of tender infanthood,

And carve the verdant stems of the vine-kissed portico.

 

And others like unto nuns with footsteps slow and grave,

Ascend the hallowed rocks of ancient mystic lore,

Where long ago St. Anthony, like a surging wave,

The naked purpled breasts of his temptation saw.

 

And still some more, that ‘neath the shimmering masses

stroll,

 

Among the silent chasm of some pagan caves,

To soothe their burning fevers unto thee they call

O Bacchus! who all ancient wounds and sorrow laves.

 

And others again, whose necks in scapulars delight,

Who hide a whip beneath their garments secretly,

Commingling, in the sombre wood and lonesome night,

The foam of torments and of tears with ecstasy.

 

O virgins, demons, monsters, and O martyred brood!

Great souls that mock Reality with remorseless sneers,

O saints and satyrs, searchers for infinitude!

At times so full of shouts, at times so full of tears!

 

You, to whom within your hell my spirit flies,

Poor sisters yea, I love you as I pity you,

For your unsatiated thirsts and anguished sighs,

And for the vials of love within your hearts so true.

 

The Death of the Lovers

 

We will have beds which exhale odours soft,

AVe will have divans profound as the tomb,

And delicate plants on the ledges aloft,

Which under the bluest of skies for us bloom.

 

Exhausting our hearts to their last desires,

They both shall be like unto two glowing coals,

Reflecting the twofold light of their fires

Across the twin mirrors of our two souls.

 

One evening of mystical azure skies,

We’ll exchange but one single lightning flash,

Just like a long sob replete with good byes.

 

And later an angel shall joyously pass

Through the half-open doors, to replenish and wash

The torches expired, and the tarnished glass.

 

The Death of the Poor

 

It is Death that consoles yea, and causes our lives

‘Tis the goal of this Life and of Hope the sole ray,

Which like a strong potion enlivens and gives

Us the strength to plod on to the end of the day.

 

And all through the tempest, the frost and the snows,

‘Tis the shimmering light on our black sky-line;

‘Tis the famous inn which the guide-book shows,

Whereat one can eat, and sleep, and recline;

 

‘Tis an angel that holds in his magic hands

The sleep, which ecstatic dream commands,

Who remakes up the beds of the naked and poor;

 

‘Tis the fame of the gods, ‘tis the granary blest,

‘Tis the purse of the poor, and his birth-place of rest,

To the unknown Heavens, ‘tis the wide-open door.