Collected Poetical Works of Charles Baudelaire

by Charles Baudelaire

  Who feeds, as worms feed on the corse,

  Or as the acorn on the oak?

  Can we suppress the old Remorse!

  Ah, in what philtre, wine, or spell,

  May we drown this our ancient foe,

  Destructive glutton, gorging well,

  Patient as the ants, and slow?

  What wine, what philtre, or what spell?

  Tell it, enchantress, if you can,

  Tell me, with anguish overcast,

  Wounded, as a dying man,

  Beneath the swift hoofs hurrying past.

  Tell it, enchantress, if you can,

  To him the wolf already tears

  Who sees the carrion pinions wave,

  This broken warrior who despairs

  To have a cross above his grave —

  This wretch the wolf already tears.

  Can one illume a leaden sky,

  Or tear apart the shadowy veil

  Thicker than pitch, no star on high,

  Not one funereal glimmer pale

  Can one illume a leaden sky?

  Hope lit the windows of the Inn,

  But now that shining flame is dead;

  And how shall martyred pilgrims win

  Along the moonless road they tread?

  Satan has darkened all the Inn!

  Witch, do you love accursèd hearts?

  Say, do you know the reprobate?

  Know you Remorse, whose venomed darts

  Make souls the targets for their hate?

  Witch, do you know accursèd hearts?

  The Might-have-been with tooth accursed

  Gnaws at the piteous souls of men,

  The deep foundations suffer first,

  And all the structure crumbles then

  Beneath the bitter tooth accursed.

  II.

  Often, when seated at the play,

  And sonorous music lights the stage,

  I see the frail hand of a Fay

  With magic dawn illume the rage

  Of the dark sky. Oft at the play

  A being made of gauze and fire

  Casts to the earth a Demon great.

  And my heart, whence all hopes expire,

  Is like a stage where I await,

  In vain, the Fay with wings of fire!

  A FORMER LIFE.

  Long since, I lived beneath vast porticoes,

  By many ocean-sunsets tinged and fired,

  Where mighty pillars, in majestic rows,

  Seemed like basaltic caves when day expired.

  The rolling surge that mirrored all the skies

  Mingled its music, turbulent and rich,

  Solemn and mystic, with the colours which

  The setting sun reflected in my eyes.

  And there I lived amid voluptuous calms,

  In splendours of blue sky and wandering wave,

  Tended by many a naked, perfumed slave,

  Who fanned my languid brow with waving palms.

  They were my slaves — the only care they had

  To know what secret grief had made me sad.

  DON JUAN IN HADES.

  When Juan sought the subterranean flood.

  And paid his obolus on the Stygian shore.

  Charon, the proud and sombre beggar, stood

  With one strong, vengeful hand on either oar.

  With open robes and bodies agonised,

  Lost women writhed beneath that darkling sky;

  There were sounds as of victims sacrificed:

  Behind him all the dark was one long cry.

  And Sganarelle, with laughter, claimed his pledge;

  Don Luis, with trembling finger in the air,

  Showed to the souls who wandered in the sedge

  The evil son who scorned his hoary hair.

  Shivering with woe, chaste Elvira the while,

  Near him untrue to all but her till now,

  Seemed to beseech him for one farewell smile

  Lit with the sweetness of the first soft vow.

  And clad in armour, a tall man of stone

  Held firm the helm, and clove the gloomy flood;

  But, staring at the vessel’s track alone,

  Bent on his sword the unmoved hero stood.

  THE LIVING FLAME.

  They pass before me, these Eyes full of light,

  Eyes made magnetic by some angel wise;

  The holy brothers pass before my sight,

  And cast their diamond fires in my dim eyes.

  They keep me from all sin and error grave,

  They set me in the path whence Beauty came;

  They are my servants, and I am their slave,

  And all my soul obeys the living flame.

  Beautiful Eyes that gleam with mystic light

  As candles lighted at full noon; the sun

  Dims not your flame phantastical and bright.

  You sing the dawn; they celebrate life done;

  Marching you chaunt my soul’s awakening hymn,

  Stars that no sun has ever made grow dim!

  CORRESPONDENCES.

  In Nature’s temple living pillars rise,

  And words are murmured none have understood.

  And man must wander through a tangled wood

  Of symbols watching him with friendly eyes.

  As long-drawn echoes heard far-off and dim

  Mingle to one deep sound and fade away;

  Vast as the night and brilliant as the day,

  Colour and sound and perfume speak to him.

  Some perfumes are as fragrant as a child,

  Sweet as the sound of hautboys, meadow-green;

  Others, corrupted, rich, exultant, wild,

  Have all the expansion of things infinite:

  As amber, incense, musk, and benzoin,

  Which sing the sense’s and the soul’s delight.

  THE FLASK.

  There are some powerful odours that can pass

  Out of the stoppered flagon; even glass

  To them is porous. Oft when some old box

  Brought from the East is opened and the locks

  And hinges creak and cry; or in a press

  In some deserted house, where the sharp stress

  Of odours old and dusty fills the brain;

  An ancient flask is brought to light again,

  And forth the ghosts of long-dead odours creep.

  There, softly trembling in the shadows, sleep

  A thousand thoughts, funereal chrysalides,

  Phantoms of old the folding darkness hides,

  Who make faint flutterings as their wings unfold,

  Rose-washed and azure-tinted, shot with gold.

  A memory that brings languor flutters here:

  The fainting eyelids droop, and giddy Fear

  Thrusts with both hands the soul towards the pit

  Where, like a Lazarus from his winding-sheet,

  Arises from the gulf of sleep a ghost

  Of an old passion, long since loved and lost.

  So I, when vanished from man’s memory

  Deep in some dark and sombre chest I lie.

  An empty flagon they have cast aside,

  Broken and soiled, the dust upon my pride,

  Will be your shroud, beloved pestilence!

  The witness of your might and virulence,

  Sweet poison mixed by angels; bitter cup

  Of life and death my heart has drunken up!

  REVERSIBILITY.

  Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?

  Shame and remorse and sobs and weary spite,

  And the vague terrors of the fearful night

  That crush the heart up like a crumpled leaf?

  Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?

  Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate?

  With hands clenched in the shade and tears of gall,

  When Vengeance beats her hellish battle-call,

  And makes herself the captain of our fate,

  Angel of kindness, h
ave you tasted hate?

  Angel of health, did ever you know pain,

  Which like an exile trails his tired footfalls

  The cold length of the white infirmary walls,

  With lips compressed, seeking the sun in vain?

  Angel of health, did ever you know pain?

  Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?

  Know you the fear of age, the torment vile

  Of reading secret horror in the smile

  Of eyes your eyes have loved since long ago?

  Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?

  Angel of happiness, and joy, and light,

  Old David would have asked for youth afresh

  From the pure touch of your enchanted flesh;

  I but implore your prayers to aid my plight,

  Angel of happiness, and joy, and light.

  THE EYES OF BEAUTY.

  You are a sky of autumn, pale and rose;

  But all the sea of sadness in my blood

  Surges, and ebbing, leaves my lips morose,

  Salt with the memory of the bitter flood.

  In vain your hand glides my faint bosom o’er,

  That which you seek, beloved, is desecrate

  By woman’s tooth and talon; ah, no more

  Seek in me for a heart which those dogs ate.

  It is a ruin where the jackals rest,

  And rend and tear and glut themselves and slay —

  A perfume swims about your naked breast!

  Beauty, hard scourge of spirits, have your way!

  With flame-like eyes that at bright feasts have flared

  Burn up these tatters that the beasts have spared!

  SONNET OF AUTUMN.

  They say to me, thy clear and crystal eyes:

  “Why dost thou love me so, strange lover mine?”

  Be sweet, be still! My heart and soul despise

  All save that antique brute-like faith of thine;

  And will not bare the secret of their shame

  To thee whose hand soothes me to slumbers long,

  Nor their black legend write for thee in flame!

  Passion I hate, a spirit does me wrong.

  Let us love gently. Love, from his retreat,

  Ambushed and shadowy, bends his fatal bow,

  And I too well his ancient arrows know:

  Crime, horror, folly. O pale marguerite,

  Thou art as I, a bright sun fallen low,

  O my so white, my so cold Marguerite.

  THE REMORSE OF THE DEAD.

  O shadowy Beauty mine, when thou shalt sleep

  In the deep heart of a black marble tomb;

  When thou for mansion and for bower shalt keep

  Only one rainy cave of hollow gloom;

  And when the stone upon thy trembling breast,

  And on thy straight sweet body’s supple grace,

  Crushes thy will and keeps thy heart at rest,

  And holds those feet from their adventurous race;

  Then the deep grave, who shares my reverie,

  (For the deep grave is aye the poet’s friend)

  During long nights when sleep is far from thee,

  Shall whisper: “Ah, thou didst not comprehend

  The dead wept thus, thou woman frail and weak” —

  And like remorse the worm shall gnaw thy cheek.

  THE GHOST.

  Softly as brown-eyed Angels rove

  I will return to thy alcove.

  And glide upon the night to thee,

  Treading the shadows silently.

  And I will give to thee, my own,

  Kisses as icy as the moon,

  And the caresses of a snake

  Cold gliding in the thorny brake.

  And when returns the livid morn

  Thou shalt find all my place forlorn

  And chilly, till the falling night.

  Others would rule by tenderness

  Over thy life and youthfulness,

  But I would conquer thee by fright!

  TO A MADONNA.

  (An Ex-Voto in the Spanish taste.)

  Madonna, mistress. I would build for thee

  An altar deep in the sad soul of me;

  And in the darkest corner of my heart,

  From mortal hopes and mocking eyes apart,

  Carve of enamelled blue and gold a shrine

  For thee to stand erect in, Image divine!

  And with a mighty Crown thou shalt be crowned

  Wrought of the gold of my smooth Verse, set round

  With starry crystal rhymes; and I will make,

  O mortal maid, a Mantle for thy sake,

  And weave it of my jealousy, a gown

  Heavy, barbaric, stiff, and weighted down

  With my distrust, and broider round the hem

  Not pearls, but all my tears in place of them.

  And then thy wavering, trembling robe shall be

  All the desires that rise and fall in me

  From mountain-peaks to valleys of repose,

  Kissing thy lovely body’s white and rose.

  For thy humiliated feet divine,

  Of my Respect I’ll make thee Slippers fine

  Which, prisoning them within a gentle fold,

  Shall keep their imprint like a faithful mould.

  And if my art, unwearying and discreet,

  Can make no Moon of Silver for thy feet

  To have for Footstool, then thy heel shall rest

  Upon the snake that gnaws within my breast,

  Victorious Queen of whom our hope is born!

  And thou shalt trample down and make a scorn

  Of the vile reptile swollen up with hate.

  And thou shalt see my thoughts, all consecrate,

  Like candles set before thy flower-strewn shrine,

  O Queen of Virgins, and the taper-shine

  Shall glimmer star-like in the vault of blue,

  With eyes of flame for ever watching you.

  While all the love and worship in my sense

  Will be sweet smoke of myrrh and frankincense.

  Ceaselessly up to thee, white peak of snow,

  My stormy spirit will in vapours go!

  And last, to make thy drama all complete,

  That love and cruelty may mix and meet,

  I, thy remorseful torturer, will take

  All the Seven Deadly Sins, and from them make

  In darkest joy, Seven Knives, cruel-edged and keen,

  And like a juggler choosing, O my Queen,

  That spot profound whence love and mercy start,

  I’ll plunge them all within thy panting heart!

  THE SKY.

  Where’er he be, on water or on land,

  Under pale suns or climes that flames enfold;

  One of Christ’s own, or of Cythera’s band,

  Shadowy beggar or Crœsus rich with gold;

  Citizen, peasant, student, tramp; whate’er

  His little brain may be, alive or dead;

  Man knows the fear of mystery everywhere,

  And peeps, with trembling glances, overhead.

  The heaven above? A strangling cavern wall;

  The lighted ceiling of a music-hall

  Where every actor treads a bloody soil —

  The hermit’s hope; the terror of the sot;

  The sky: the black lid of the mighty pot

  Where the vast human generations boil!

  SPLEEN.

  I’m like some king in whose corrupted veins

  Flows aged blood; who rules a land of rains;

  Who, young in years, is old in all distress;

  Who flees good counsel to find weariness

  Among his dogs and playthings, who is stirred

  Neither by hunting-hound nor hunting-bird;

  Whose weary face emotion moves no more

  E’en when his people die before his door.

  His favourite Jester’s most fantastic wile

  Upon that sick, cruel face can raise no smil
e;

  The courtly dames, to whom all kings are good,

  Can lighten this young skeleton’s dull mood

  No more with shameless toilets. In his gloom

  Even his lilied bed becomes a tomb.

  The sage who takes his gold essays in vain

  To purge away the old corrupted strain,

  His baths of blood, that in the days of old

  The Romans used when their hot blood grew cold,

  Will never warm this dead man’s bloodless pains,

  For green Lethean water fills his veins.

  THE OWLS.

  Under the overhanging yews,

  The dark owls sit in solemn state.

  Like stranger gods; by twos and twos

  Their red eyes gleam. They meditate.

  Motionless thus they sit and dream

  Until that melancholy hour

  When, with the sun’s last fading gleam,

  The nightly shades assume their power.

  From their still attitude the wise

  Will learn with terror to despise

  All tumult, movement, and unrest;

  For he who follows every shade,

  Carries the memory in his breast,

  Of each unhappy journey made.

  BIEN LOIN D’ICI.

  Here is the chamber consecrate,

  Wherein this maiden delicate,

  And enigmatically sedate,

  Fans herself while the moments creep,

  Upon her cushions half-asleep,

  And hears the fountains plash and weep.

  Dorothy’s chamber undefiled.

  The winds and waters sing afar

  Their song of sighing strange and wild

  To lull to sleep the petted child.

  From head to foot with subtle care,

  Slaves have perfumed her delicate skin

  With odorous oils and benzoin.

  And flowers faint in a corner there.

  MUSIC.

  Music doth oft uplift me like a sea

  Towards my planet pale,

  Then through dark fogs or heaven’s infinity

  I lift my wandering sail.

  With breast advanced, drinking the winds that flee,

  And through the cordage wail,

  I mount the hurrying waves night hides from me

  Beneath her sombre veil.

  I feel the tremblings of all passions known

  To ships before the breeze;