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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 36098 ***
+
+THE FLOWERS OF EVIL
+
+by
+
+CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
+
+
+TRANSLATED INTO
+
+ENGLISH  VERSE
+
+
+BY
+
+CYRIL SCOTT
+
+
+LONDON
+
+ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET
+
+M CM IX
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATED TO ARTHUR SYMONS
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+  Benediction
+  Echoes
+  The Sick Muse
+  The Venal Muse
+  The Evil Monk
+  The Enemy
+  Ill-Luck
+  Interior Life
+  Man and the Sea
+  Beauty
+  The Ideal
+  The Giantess
+  Hymn to Beauty
+  Exotic Perfume
+  La Chevelure
+  Sonnet XXVIII
+  Posthumous Remorse
+  The Balcony
+  The Possessed One
+  Semper Eadem
+  All Entire
+  Sonnet XLIII
+  The Living Torch
+  The Spiritual Dawn
+  Evening Harmony
+  Overcast Sky
+  Invitation to a Journey
+  "Causerie"
+  Autumn Song
+  Sisina
+  To a Creolean Lady
+  Moesta et Errabunda
+  The Ghost
+  Autumn Song
+  Sadness of the Moon-Goddess
+  Cats
+  Owls
+  Music
+  The Joyous Defunct
+  The Broken Bell
+  Spleen
+  Obsession
+  Magnetic Horror
+  The Lid
+  Bertha's Eyes
+  The Set of the Romantic Sun
+  Meditation
+  To a Passer-by
+  Illusionary Love
+  Mists and Rains
+  The Wine of Lovers
+  Condemned Women
+  The Death of the Lovers
+  The Death of the Poor
+
+
+
+
+   Benediction
+
+
+    When by the changeless Power of a Supreme Decree
+    The poet issues forth upon this sorry sphere,
+    His mother, horrified, and full of blasphemy,
+    Uplifts her voice to God, who takes compassion on her.
+
+   "Ah, why did I not bear a serpent's nest entire,
+    Instead of bringing forth this hideous Child of Doom!
+    Oh cursèd be that transient night of vain desire
+    When I conceived my expiation in my womb!"
+
+   "Yet since among all women thou hast chosen me
+    To be the degradation of my jaded mate,
+    And since I cannot like a love-leaf wantonly
+    Consign this stunted monster to the glowing grate,"
+
+   "I'll cause thine overwhelming hatred to rebound
+    Upon the cursèd tool of thy most wicked spite.
+    Forsooth, the branches of this wretched tree I'll wound
+    And rob its pestilential blossoms of their might!"
+
+    So thus, she giveth vent unto her foaming ire,
+    And knowing not the changeless statutes of all times,
+    Herself, amid the flames of hell, prepares the pyre;
+    The consecrated penance of maternal crimes.
+
+    Yet 'neath th' invisible shelter of an Angel's wing
+    This sunlight-loving infant disinherited,
+    Exhales from all he eats and drinks, and everything
+    The ever sweet ambrosia and the nectar red.
+
+    He trifles with the winds and with the clouds that glide,
+    About the way unto the Cross, he loves to sing,
+    The spirit on his pilgrimage; that faithful guide,
+    Oft weeps to see him joyful like a bird of Spring.
+
+    All those that he would cherish shrink from him with fear,
+    And some that waxen bold by his tranquility,
+    Endeavour hard some grievance from his heart to tear,
+    And make on him the trial of their ferocity.
+
+    Within the bread and wine outspread for his repast
+    To mingle dust and dirty spittle they essay,
+    And everything he touches, forth they slyly cast,
+    Or scourge themselves, if e'er their feet betrod his way.
+
+    His wife goes round proclaiming in the crowded quads--
+   "Since he can find my body beauteous to behold,
+    Why not perform the office of those ancient gods
+    And like unto them, redeck myself with shining gold?"
+
+   "I'll bathe myself with incense, spikenard and myrrh,
+    With genuflexions, delicate viandes and wine,
+    To see, in jest, if from a heart, that loves me dear,
+    I cannot filch away the hommages divine."
+
+   "And when of these impious jokes at length I tire,
+    My frail but mighty hands, around his breast entwined,
+    With nails, like harpies' nails, shall cunningly conspire
+    The hidden path unto his feeble heart to find."
+
+   "And like a youngling bird that trembles in its nest,
+    I'll pluck his heart right out; within its own blood drowned,
+    And finally to satiate my favourite beast,
+    I'll throw it with intense disdain upon the ground!"
+
+    Towards the Heavens where he sees the sacred grail
+    The poet calmly stretches forth his pious arms,
+    Whereon the lightenings from his lucid spirit veil
+    The sight of the infuriated mob that swarms.
+
+   "Oh blest be thou, Almighty who bestowest pain,
+    Like some divine redress for our infirmities,
+    And like the most refreshing and the purest rain,
+    To sanctify the strong, for saintly ecstasies."
+
+   "I know that for the poet thou wilt grant a chair,
+    Among the Sainted Legion and the Blissful ones,
+    That of the endless feast thou wilt accord his share
+    To him, of Virtues, Dominations and of Thrones."
+
+   "I know, that Sorrow is that nobleness alone,
+    Which never may corrupted be by hell nor curse,
+    I know, in order to enwreathe my mystic crown
+    I must inspire the ages and the universe."
+
+   "And yet the buried jewels of Palmyra old,
+    The undiscovered metals and the pearly sea
+    Of gems, that unto me you show could never hold
+    Beside this diadem of blinding brilliancy."
+
+   "For it shall be engendered from the purest fire
+    Of rays primeval, from the holy hearth amassed,
+    Of which the eyes of Mortals, in their sheen entire,
+    Are but the tarnished mirrors, sad and overcast!"
+
+
+
+
+   Echoes
+
+
+   In Nature's temple, living columns rise,
+   Which oftentimes give tongue to words subdued,
+   And Man traverses this symbolic wood,
+   Which looks at him with half familiar eyes,
+
+   Like lingering echoes, which afar confound
+   Themselves in deep and sombre unity,
+   As vast as Night, and like transplendency,
+   The scents and colours to each other respond.
+
+   And scents there are, like infant's flesh as chaste,
+   As sweet as oboes, and as meadows fair,
+   And others, proud, corrupted, rich and vast,
+
+   Which have the expansion of infinity,
+   Like amber, musk and frankincense and myrrh,
+   That sing the soul's and senses' ecstasy.
+
+
+
+
+   The Sick Muse
+
+
+   Alas--my poor Muse--what aileth thee now?
+   Thine eyes are bedimmed with the visions of Night,
+   And silent and cold--I perceive on thy brow
+   In their turns--Despair and Madness alight.
+
+   A succubus green, or a hobgoblin red,
+   Has it poured o'er thee Horror and Love from its urn?
+   Or the Nightmare with masterful bearing hath led
+   Thee to drown in the depths of some magic Minturne?
+
+   I wish, as the health-giving fragrance I cull,
+   That thy breast with strong thoughts could for ever be full,
+   And that rhymthmic'ly flowing--thy Christian blood
+
+   Could resemble the olden-time metrical-flood,
+   Where each in his turn reigned the father of Rhymes
+   Phoebus--and Pan, lord of Harvest-times.
+
+
+
+
+   The Venal Muse
+
+
+   Oh Muse of my heart--so fond of palaces old,
+   Wilt have--when New Year speeds its wintry blast,
+   Amid those tedious nights, with snow o'ercast,
+   A log to warm thy feet, benumbed with cold?
+
+   Wilt thou thy marbled shoulders then revive
+   With nightly rays that through thy shutters peep?
+   And--void thy purse and void thy palace--reap
+   A golden hoard within some azure hive?
+
+   Thou must, to earn thy daily bread, each night,
+   Suspend the censer like an acolyte,
+   Te-Deums sing, with sanctimonious ease,
+
+   Or as a famished mountebank, with jokes obscene
+   Essay to lull the vulgar rabble's spleen;
+   Thy laughter soaked in tears which no one sees.
+
+
+
+
+   The Evil Monk
+
+
+   The cloisters old, expounded on their walls
+   With paintings, the Beatic Verity,
+   The which--adorning their religious halls,
+   Enriched the frigidness of their Austerity.
+
+   In days when Christian seeds bloomed o'er the land,
+   Full many a noble monk unknown to-day,
+   Upon the field of tombs would take his stand,
+   Exalting Death in rude and simple way.
+
+   My soul is a tomb where--bad monk that I be--
+   I dwell and search its depths from all eternity,
+   And nought bedecks the walls of the odious spot.
+
+   Oh sluggard monk! when shall I glean aright
+   From the living spectacle of my bitter lot,
+   To mold my handywork and mine eyes' Delight?
+
+
+
+
+   The Enemy
+
+
+   My childhood was nought but a ravaging storm,
+   Enlivened at times by a brilliant sun;
+   The rain and the winds wrought such havoc and harm
+   That of buds on my plot there remains hardly one.
+
+   Behold now the Fall of ideas I have reached,
+   And the shovel and rake one must therefore resume,
+   In collecting the turf, inundated and breached,
+   Where the waters dug trenches as deep as a tomb.
+
+   And yet these new blossoms, for which I craved,
+   Will they find in this earth--like a shore that is laved--
+   The mystical fuel which vigour imparts?
+
+   Oh misery!--Time devours our lives,
+   And the enemy black, which consumeth our hearts
+   On the blood of our bodies, increases and thrives!
+
+
+
+
+   Ill Luck
+
+
+   This heavy burden to uplift,
+   O Sysiphus, thy pluck is required!
+   And even though the heart aspired,
+   Art is long and Time is swift.
+
+   Afar from sepulchres renowned,
+   To a graveyard, quite apart,
+   Like a broken drum, my heart,
+   Beats the funeral marches' sound.
+
+   Many a buried jewel sleeps
+   In the long-forgotten deeps,
+   Far from mattock and from sound;
+
+   Many a flower wafts aloft
+   Its perfumes, like a secret soft,
+   Within the solitudes, profound.
+
+
+
+
+   Interior Life
+
+
+   A long while I dwelt beneath vast porticoes,
+   While the ocean-suns bathed with a thousand fires,
+   And which with their great and majestic spires,
+   At eventide looked like basaltic grottoes.
+
+   The billows, in rolling depictured the skies,
+   And mingled, in solemn and mystical strain,
+   The all-mighteous chords of their luscious refrain
+   With the sun-set's colours reflexed in mine eyes.
+
+   It is there that I lived in exalted calm,
+   In the midst of the azure, the splendour, the waves,
+   While pregnant with perfumes, naked slaves
+
+   Refreshed my forehead with branches of palm,
+   Whose gentle and only care was to know
+   The secret that caused me to languish so.
+
+
+
+
+   Man and the Sea
+
+
+   Free man! the sea is to thee ever dear!
+   The sea is thy mirror, thou regardest thy soul
+   In its mighteous waves that unendingly roll,
+   And thy spirit is yet not a chasm less drear.
+
+   Thou delight'st to plunge deep in thine image down;
+   Thou tak'st it with eyes and with arms in embrace,
+   And at times thine own inward voice would'st efface
+   With the sound of its savage ungovernable moan.
+
+   You are both of you, sombre, secretive and deep:
+   Oh mortal, thy depths are foraye unexplored,
+   Oh sea--no one knoweth thy dazzling hoard,
+   You both are so jealous your secrets to keep!
+
+   And endless ages have wandered by,
+   Yet still without pity or mercy you fight,
+   So mighty in plunder and death your delight:
+   Oh wrestlers! so constant in enmity!
+
+
+
+
+   Beauty
+
+
+   I am lovely, O mortals, like a dream of stone,
+   And my bosom, where each one gets bruised in turn,
+   To inspire the love of a poet is prone,
+   Like matter eternally silent and stern.
+
+   As an unfathomed sphinx, enthroned by the Nile,
+   My heart a swan's whiteness with granite combines,
+   And I hate every movement, displacing the lines,
+   And never I weep and never I smile.
+
+   The poets in front of mine attitudes fine
+   (Which the proudest of monuments seem to implant),
+   To studies profound all their moments assign,
+
+   For I have all these docile swains to enchant--
+   Two mirrors, which Beauty in all things ignite:
+   Mine eyes, my large eyes, of eternal Light!
+
+
+
+
+   The Ideal
+
+
+   It could ne'er be those beauties of ivory vignettes;
+   The varied display of a worthless age,
+   Nor puppet-like figures with castonets,
+   That ever an heart like mine could engage.
+
+   I leave to Gavarni, that poet of chlorosis,
+   His hospital-beauties in troups that whirl,
+   For I cannot discover amid his pale roses
+   A flower to resemble my scarlet ideal.
+
+   Since, what for this fathomless heart I require
+   Is--Lady Macbeth you! in crime so dire;
+   --An Æschylus dream transposed from the South--
+
+   Or thee, oh great "Night" of Michael-Angelo born,
+   Who so calmly thy limbs in strange posture hath drawn,
+   Whose allurements are framed for a Titan's mouth.
+
+
+
+
+   The Giantess
+
+
+   I should have loved--erewhile when Heaven conceived
+   Each day, some child abnormal and obscene,
+   Beside a maiden giantess to have lived,
+   Like a luxurious cat at the feet of a queen;
+
+   To see her body flowering with her soul,
+   And grow, unchained, in awe-inspiring art,
+   Within the mists across her eyes that stole
+   To divine the fires entombed within her heart.
+
+   And oft to scramble o'er her mighty limbs,
+   And climb the slopes of her enormous knees,
+   Or in summer when the scorching sunlight streams
+
+   Across the country, to recline at ease,
+   And slumber in the shadow of her breast
+   Like an hamlet 'neath the mountain-crest.
+
+
+
+
+   Hymn to Beauty
+
+
+   O Beauty! dost thou generate from Heaven or from Hell?
+   Within thy glance, so diabolic and divine,
+   Confusedly both wickedness and goodness dwell,
+   And hence one might compare thee unto sparkling wine.
+
+   Thy look containeth both the dawn and sunset stars,
+   Thy perfumes, as upon a sultry night exhale,
+   Thy kiss a philter, and thy mouth a Grecian vase,
+   That renders heroes cowardly and infants hale.
+
+   Yea, art thou from the planets, or the fiery womb?
+   The demon follows in thy train, with magic fraught,
+   Thou scatter'st seeds haphazardly of joy and doom,
+   Thou govern'st everything, but answer'st unto nought.
+
+   O Loveliness! thou spurnest corpses with delight,
+   Among thy jewels, Horror hath such charms for thee,
+   And Murder 'mid thy mostly cherished trinklets bright,
+   Upon thy massive bosom dances amorously.
+
+   The blinded, fluttering moth towards the candle flies,
+   Then frizzles, falls, and falters--"Blessings unto thee"--
+   The panting swain that o'er his beauteous mistress sighs,
+   Seems like the Sick, that stroke their gravestones lovingly.
+
+   What matter, if thou comest from the Heavens or Hell,
+   O Beauty, frightful ghoul, ingenuous and obscure!
+   So long thine eyes, thy smile, to me the way can tell
+   Towards that Infinite I love, but never saw.
+
+   From God or Satan? Angel, Mermaid, Proserpine?
+   What matter if thou makest--blithe, voluptuous sprite--
+   With rhythms, perfumes, visions--O mine only queen!--
+   The universe less hideous and the hours less trite.
+
+
+
+
+   Exotic Perfume
+
+
+   When, with closed eyes, on a hot afternoon,
+   The scent of thine ardent breast I inhale,
+   Celestial vistas my spirit assail;
+   Caressed by the flames of an endless sun.
+
+   A langorous island, where Nature abounds
+   With exotic trees and luscious fruit;
+   And with men whose bodies are slim and astute,
+   And with women whose frankness delights and astounds.
+
+   By thy perfume enticed to this region remote,
+   A port I see, laden with mast and with boat,
+   Still wearied and torn by the distant brine;
+
+   While the tamarisk-odours that dreamily throng
+   The air, round my slumberous senses intwine,
+   And mix, in my soul, with the mariners' song.
+
+
+
+
+   La Chevelure
+
+
+   O fleece, that foams down unto the shoulders bare!
+   O curls, O scents which lovely languidness exhale!
+   Delight! to fill this alcove's sombre atmosphere
+   With memories, sleeping deep within this tress of hair,
+   I'll wave it in the evening breezes like a veil!
+
+   The shores of Africa, and Asia's burning skies,
+   A world forgotten, distant, nearly dead and spent,
+   Within thy depths, O aromatic forest! lies.
+   And like to spirits floating unto melodies,
+   Mine own, Belovèd! glides within thy sacred scent.
+
+   There I will hasten, where the trees and humankind
+   With languor lull beside the hot and silent sea;
+   Strong tresses bear me, be to me the waves and wind!
+   Within thy fragrance lies a dazzling dream confined
+   Of sails and masts and flames--O lake of ebony!
+
+   A loudly echoing harbour, where my soul may hold
+   To quaff, the silver cup of colours, scents and sounds,
+   Wherein the vessels glide upon a sea of gold,
+   And stretch their mighty arms, the glory to enfold
+   Of virgin skies, where never-ending heat abounds.
+
+   I'll plunge my brow, enamoured with voluptuousness
+   Within this darkling ocean of infinitude,
+   Until my subtle spirit, which thy waves caress,
+   Shall find you once again, O fertile weariness;
+   Unending lullabye of perfumed lassitude!
+
+   Ye tresses blue--recess of strange and sombre shades,
+   Ye make the azure of the starry Realm immense;
+   Upon the downy beeches, by your curls' cascades,
+   Among your mingling fragrances, my spirit wades
+   To cull the musk and cocoa-nut and lotus scents.
+
+   Long--foraye--my hand, within thy heavy mane,
+   Shall scatter rubies, pearls, sapphires eternally,
+   And thus my soul's desire for thee shall never wane;
+   For art not thou the oasis where I dream and drain
+   With draughts profound, the golden wine of memory?
+
+
+
+
+   Sonnet XXVIII
+
+
+   With pearly robes that wave within the wind,
+   Even when she walks, she seems to dance,
+   Like swaying serpents round those wands entwined
+   Which fakirs ware in rhythmic elegance.
+
+   So like the desert's Blue, and the sands remote,
+   Both, deaf to mortal suffering and to strife,
+   Or like the sea-weeds 'neath the waves that float,
+   Indifferently she moulds her budding life.
+
+   Her polished eyes are made of minerals bright,
+   And in her mien, symbolical and cold,
+   Wherein an angel mingles with a sphinx of old,
+
+   Where all is gold, and steel, and gems, and light,
+   There shines, just like a useless star eternally,
+   The sterile woman's frigid majesty.
+
+
+
+
+   Posthumous Remorse
+
+
+   Ah, when thou shalt slumber, my darkling love,
+   Beneath a black marble-made statuette,
+   And when thou'lt have nought for thy house or alcove,
+   But a cavernous den and a damp oubliette.
+
+   When the tomb-stone, oppressing thy timorous breast,
+   And thy hips drooping sweetly with listless decay,
+   The pulse and desires of mine heart shall arrest,
+   And thy feet from pursuing their adventurous way,
+
+   Then the grave, that dark friend of my limitless dreams
+   (For the grave ever readeth the poet aright),
+   Amid those long nights, which no slumber redeems
+
+   'Twill query--"What use to thee, incomplete spright
+   That thou ne'er hast unfathomed the tears of the dead"?--
+   Then the worms will gnaw deep at thy body, like Dread.
+
+
+
+
+   The Balcony
+
+
+   Oh, Mother of Memories! Mistress of Mistresses!
+   Oh, thou all my pleasures, oh, thou all my prayers!
+   Can'st thou remember those luscious caresses,
+   The charm of the hearth and the sweet evening airs?
+   Oh, Mother, of Memories, Mistress of Mistresses!
+
+   Those evenings illumed by the glow of the coal,
+   And those roseate nights with their vaporous wings,
+   How calm was thy breast and how good was thy soul,
+   'Twas then we uttered imperishable things,
+   Those evenings illumed by the glow of the coal.
+
+   How lovely the suns on those hot, autumn nights!
+   How vast were the heavens! and the heart how hale!
+   As I leaned towards you--oh, my Queen of Delights,
+   The scent of thy blood I seemed to inhale.
+   How lovely the sun on those hot, autumn nights!
+
+   The shadows of night-time grew dense like a pall,
+   And deep through the darkness thine eyes I divined,
+   And I drank of thy breath--oh sweetness, oh gall,
+   And thy feet in my brotherly hands reclined,
+   The shadows of Night-time grew dense like a pall.
+
+   I know how to call forth those moments so dear,
+   And to live my Past--laid on thy knees--once more,
+   For where should I seek for thy beauties but here
+   In thy langorous heart and thy body so pure?
+   I know how to call forth those moments so dear.
+
+   Those perfumes, those infinite kisses and sighs,
+   Are they born in some gulf to our plummets denied?
+   Like rejuvenate suns that mount up to the skies,
+   That first have been cleansed in the depths of the tide;
+   Oh, perfumes! oh, infinite kisses and sighs!
+
+
+
+
+   The Possessed One
+
+
+   The sun is enveloped in crape! like it,
+   O Moon of my Life! wrap thyself up in shade;
+   At will, smoke or slumber, be silent, be staid,
+   And dive deep down in Dispassion's dark pit.
+
+   I cherish thee thus! But if 'tis thy mood,
+   Like a star that from out its penumbra appears,
+   To float in the regions where madness careers,
+   Fair dagger! burst forth from thy sheath! 'tis good.
+
+   Yea, light up thine eyes at the Fire of Renown!
+   Or kindle desire by the looks of some clown!
+   Thine All is my joy, whether dull or aflame!
+
+   Just be what thou wilt, black night, dawn divine,
+   There is not a nerve in my trembling frame
+   But cries, "I adore thee, Beelzebub mine!"
+
+
+
+
+   Semper Eadem
+
+
+   "From whence it comes, you ask, this gloom acute,
+   Like waves that o'er the rocky headland fall?"
+   --When once our hearts have gathered in their fruit,
+   To live is a curse! a secret known to all,
+
+   A grief, quite simple, nought mysterious,
+   And like your joy--for all, both loud and shrill,
+   Nay cease to clamour, be not e'er so curious!
+   And yet although your voice is sweet, be still!
+
+   Be still, O soul, with rapture ever rife!
+   O mouth, with the childish smile! Far more than Life,
+   The subtle bonds of Death around us twine.
+
+   Let--let my heart, the wine of falsehood drink,
+   And dream-like, deep within your fair eyes sink,
+   And in the shade of thy lashes long recline!
+
+
+
+
+   All Entire
+
+
+    The Demon, in my lofty vault,
+    This morning came to visit me,
+    And striving me to find at fault,
+    He said, "Fain would I know of thee;
+
+   "Among the many beauteous things,
+    --All which _her_ subtle grace proclaim--
+    Among the dark and rosy things,
+    Which go to make her charming frame,
+
+   "Which is the sweetest unto thee"?
+    My soul! to Him thou didst retort--
+   "Since all with her is destiny,
+    Of preference there can be nought.
+
+    When all transports me with delight,
+    If aught deludes I can not know,
+    She either lulls one like the Night,
+    Or dazzles like the Morning-glow.
+
+    That harmony is too divine,
+    Which governs all her body fair,
+    For powerless mortals to define
+    In notes the many concords there.
+
+    O mystic metamorphosis
+    Of all my senses blent in one!
+    Her voice a beauteous perfume is,
+    Her breath makes music, chaste and wan.
+
+
+
+
+   Sonnet XLIII
+
+
+   What sayest thou, to-night, poor soul so drear,
+   What sayest--heart erewhile engulfed in gloom,
+   To the very lovely, very chaste, and very dear,
+   Whose god-like look hath made thee to re-bloom?
+
+   To her, with pride we chant an echoing Hymn,
+   For nought can touch the sweetness of her sway;
+   Her flesh ethereal as the seraphim,
+   Her eyes with robe of light our souls array.
+
+   And be it in the night, or solitude,
+   Among the streets or 'mid the multitude,
+   Her shadow, torch-like, dances in the air,
+
+   And murmurs, "I, the Beautiful proclaim--
+   That for my sake, alone ye love the Fair;
+   I am the Guardian Angel, Muse and Dame!"
+
+
+
+
+   The Living Torch
+
+
+   They stand before me now, those eyes that shine,
+   No doubt inspired by an Angel wise;
+   They stand, those God-like brothers that are mine,
+   And pour their diamond fires in mine eyes.
+
+   From all transgressions, from all snares, they save,
+   Towards the Path of Joy they guide my ways;
+   They are my servants, and I am their slave;
+   And all my soul, this living torch obeys.
+
+   Ye charming Eyes--ye have those mystic beams,
+   Of candles, burning in full day; the sun
+   Awakes, yet kills not their fantastic gleams:
+
+   Ye sing the Awak'ning, they the dark oblivion;
+   The Awak'ning of my spirit ye proclaim,
+   O stars--no sun can ever kill your flame!
+
+
+
+
+   The Spiritual Dawn
+
+
+   When the morning white and rosy breaks,
+   With the gnawing Ideal, upon the debauchee,
+   By the power of a strange decree,
+   Within the sotted beast an Angel wakes.
+
+   The mental Heaven's inaccessible blue,
+   For wearied mortals that still dream and mourn,
+   Expands and sinks; towards the chasm drawn.
+   Thus, cherished goddess, Being pure and true--
+
+   Upon the rests of foolish orgy-nights
+   Thine image, more sublime, more pink, more clear,
+   Before my staring eyes is ever there.
+
+   The sun has darkened all the candle lights;
+   And thus thy spectre like the immortal sun,
+   Is ever victorious--thou resplendent one!
+
+
+
+
+   Evening Harmony
+
+
+   The hour approacheth, when, as their stems incline,
+   The flowers evaporate like an incense urn,
+   And sounds and scents in the vesper breezes turn;
+   A melancholy waltz--and a drowsiness divine.
+
+   The flowers evaporate like an incense urn,
+   The viol vibrates like the wailing of souls that repine.
+   A melancholy waltz--and a drowsiness divine,
+   The skies like a mosque are beautiful and stern.
+
+   The viol vibrates like the wailing of souls that repine;
+   Sweet souls that shrink from chaos vast and etern,
+   The skies like a mosque are beautiful and stern,
+   The sunset drowns within its blood-red brine.
+
+   Sweet souls that shrink from chaos vast and etern,
+   Essay the wreaths of their faded Past to entwine,
+   The sunset drowns within its blood-red brine,
+   Thy thought within me glows like an incense urn.
+
+
+
+
+   Overcast Sky
+
+
+   Meseemeth thy glance, soft enshrouded with dew,
+   Thy mysterious eyes (are they grey, green or blue?),
+   Alternately cruel, and tender, and shy,
+   Reflect both the languor and calm of the sky.
+
+   Thou recallest those white days--with shadows caressed,
+   Engendering tears from th' enraptured breast,
+   When racked by an anguish unfathomed that weeps,
+   The nerves, too awake, jibe the spirit that sleeps.
+
+   At times--thou art like those horizons divine,
+   Where the suns of the nebulous seasons decline;
+   How resplendent art thou--O pasturage vast,
+   Illumed by the beams of a sky overcast!
+
+   O! dangerous dame--oh seductive clime!
+   As well, will I love both thy snow and thy rime,
+   And shall I know how from the frosts to entice
+   Delights that are keener than iron and ice?
+
+
+
+
+   Invitation to a Journey
+
+
+       My sister, my dear
+       Consider how fair,
+   Together to live it would be!
+       Down yonder to fly
+       To love, till we die,
+   In the land which resembles thee.
+       Those suns that rise
+       'Neath erratic skies,
+   --No charm could be like unto theirs--
+       So strange and divine,
+       Like those eyes of thine
+   Which glow in the midst of their tears.
+
+   There, all is order and loveliness,
+   Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.
+
+       The tables and chairs,
+       Polished bright by the years,
+   Would decorate sweetly our rooms,
+       And the rarest of flowers
+       Would twine round our bowers
+   And mingle their amber perfumes:
+       The ceilings arrayed,
+       And the mirrors inlaid,
+   This Eastern splendour among,
+       Would furtively steal
+       O'er our souls, and appeal
+   With its tranquillous native tongue.
+
+   There, all is order and loveliness,
+   Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.
+
+       In the harbours, peep,
+       At the vessels asleep
+   (Their humour is always to roam),
+       Yet it is but to grant
+       Thy smallest want
+   From the ends of the earth that they come,
+       The sunsets beam
+       Upon meadow and stream,
+   And upon the city entire
+       'Neath a violet crest,
+       The world sinks to rest,
+   Illumed by a golden fire.
+
+   There, all is order and loveliness,
+   Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.
+
+
+
+
+   "Causerie"
+
+   You are a roseate autumn-sky, that glows!
+   Yet sadness rises in me like the flood,
+   And leaves in ebbing on my lips morose,
+   The poignant memory of its bitter mind.
+
+   In vain your hands my swooning breast embrace,
+   Oh, friend! alone remains the plundered spot,
+   Where woman's biting grip has left its trace:
+   My heart, the beasts devoured--seek it not!
+
+   My heart is a palace pillaged by the herd;
+   They kill and take each other by the throat!
+   A perfume glides around your bosom bared--
+
+   O loveliness, thou scourge of souls--devote
+   Thine eyes of fire--luminous-like feasts,
+   To burn these rags--rejected by the beasts!
+
+
+
+
+   Autumn Song
+
+
+   I
+
+   Shortly we will plunge within the frigid gloom,
+   Farewell swift summer brightness; all too short--
+   I hear already sounding with a death-like boom
+   The wood that falls upon the pavement of the court.
+
+   The whole of winter enters in my Being--pain,
+   Hate, honor, labour hard and forced--and dread,
+   And like the northern sun upon its polar plane
+   My heart will soon be but a stone, iced and red.
+
+   I listen trembling unto every log that falls,
+   The scaffold, which they build, has not a duller sound,
+   My spirits waver, like the trembling tower walls
+   that shake--with every echoing blow the builders pound.
+
+   Meeseemeth--as to these monotonous blows I sway,
+   They nail for one a coffin lid, or sound a knell--
+   For whom? Autumn now--and summer yesterday!
+   This strange mysterious noise betokens a farewell.
+
+
+   II
+
+   I love within your oblong eyes the verdant rays,
+   My sweet! but bitter everything to-day meseems:
+   And nought--your love, the boudoir, nor the flickering blaze,
+   Can replace the sun that o'er the screen streams.
+
+   And yet bemother and caress me, tender heart!
+   Even me the thankless and the worthless one;
+   Beloved or sister--unto me the sweets impart
+   Of a glorious autumn or a sinking sun.
+
+   Ephemeral task! the beckoning the beckoning empty tomb is set!
+   Oh grant me--as upon your knees my head I lay,
+   (Because the white and torrid summer I regret),
+   To taste the parted season's mild and amber ray.
+
+
+
+
+   Sisina
+
+
+   Imagine Diana in gorgeous array,
+   How into the forests and thickets she flies,
+   With her hair in the breezes, and flushed for the fray,
+   How the very best riders she proudly defies.
+
+   Have you seen Théroigne, of the blood-thirsty heart,
+   As an unshod herd to attack he bestirs,
+   With cheeks all inflamed, playing up to his part,
+   As he goes, sword in hand, up the royal stairs?
+
+   And so is Sisina--yet this warrior sweet,
+   Has a soul with compassion and kindness replete,
+   Inspired by drums and by powder, her sway
+
+   Knows how to concede to the supplicants' prayers,
+   And her bosom, laid waste by the flames, has alway,
+   For those that are worthy, a fountain of tears.
+
+
+
+
+   To a Creolean Lady
+
+
+   In a country perfumed with the sun's embrace,
+   I knew 'neath a dais of purpled palms,
+   And branches where idleness weeps o'er one's face,
+   A Creolean lady of unknown charms.
+
+   Her tint, pale and warm--this bewitching bride,
+   Displays a nobly nurtured mien,
+   Courageous and grand like a huntsman, her stride;
+   A tranquil smile and eyes serene.
+
+   If, madam, you'd go to the true land of gain,
+   By the banks of the verdant Loire or the Seine,
+   How worthy to garnish some pile of renown.
+
+   You'd awake in the calm of some shadowy nest,
+   A thousand songs in the poet's breast,
+   That your eyes would inspire far more than your brown.
+
+
+
+
+   Moesta et Errabunda
+
+
+   Oh, Agatha, tell! does thy heart not at times fly away?
+   Far from the city impure and the lowering sea,
+   To another ocean that blinds with its dazzling array,
+   So blue and so clear and profound, like virginity?
+   Oh, Agatha, tell! does thy heart not at times fly away?
+
+   The sea, the vast ocean our travail and trouble consoles!
+   What demon hath gifted the sea with a voice from on high,
+   To sing us (attuned to an Æolus-organ that rolls
+   Forth a grumbling burden) a lenitive lullabye?
+   The sea, the vast ocean our travail and trouble consoles!
+
+   Oh, carry me, waggons, oh, sailing-ships, help me depart!
+   Far, far, here the dust is quite wet with our showering tears,
+   Oh, say! it is true that Agatha's desolate heart,
+   Proclaimeth, "Away from remorse, and from crimes, and from cares,"
+   Oh, carry me, waggons, oh, sailing ships, help me depart!
+
+   How distant you seem to be, perfumed Elysian fields!
+   Wherein there is nothing but sunshine and love and glee;
+   Where all that one loves is so worthy, and lovingly yields,
+   And our hearts float about in the purest of ecstasy,
+   How distant you seem to be, perfumed Elysian fields!
+
+   But the green paradise of those transient infantile loves,
+   The strolls, and the songs, and the kisses, and bunches of flowers,
+   The viols vibrating beyond, in the mountainous groves,
+   With the chalice of wine and the evening, entwined, in the bowers,
+   But the green paradise of those transient infantile loves.
+
+   That innocent heaven o'erflowing with furtive delight,
+   Than China or India, is it still further away?
+   Or, could one with pityful prayers bring it back to our sight?
+   Or yet with a silvery voice o'er the ages convey
+   That innocent heaven o'erflowing with furtive delight!
+
+
+
+
+   The Ghost
+
+
+   Just like an angel with evil eye,
+   I shall return to thee silently,
+   Upon thy bower I'll alight,
+   With falling shadows of the night.
+
+   With thee, my brownie, I'll commune,
+   And give thee kisses cold as the moon,
+   And with a serpent's moist embrace,
+   I'll crawl around thy resting-place.
+
+   And when the livid morning falls,
+   Thou'lt find alone the empty walls,
+   And till the evening, cold 'twill be.
+
+   As others with their tenderness,
+   Upon thy life and youthfulness,
+   I'll reign alone with dread o'er thee.
+
+
+
+
+   Autumn Song
+
+
+   They ask me--thy crystalline eyes, so acute,
+   "Odd lover--why am I to thee so dear?"
+   --Be sweet and keep silent, my heart, which is sear,
+   For all save the rude and untutored brute,
+
+   Is loth its infernal depths to reveal,
+   And its dissolute motto engraven with fire,
+   Oh charmer! whose arms endless slumber inspire!
+   I abominate passion and wit makes me ill.
+
+   So let us love gently. Within his retreat,
+   Foreboding, Love seeks for his arrows a prey,
+   I know all the arms of his battle array.
+
+   Delirium and loathing--O pale Marguerite!
+   Like me, art thou not an autumnal ray,
+   Alas my so white, my so cold Marguerite!
+
+
+
+
+   Sadness of the Moon-Goddess
+
+
+   To-night the Moon dreams with increased weariness,
+   Like a beauty stretched forth on a downy heap
+   Of rugs, while her languorous fingers caress
+   The contour of her breasts, before falling to sleep.
+
+   On the satin back of the avalanche soft,
+   She falls into lingering swoons, as she dies,
+   While she lifteth her eyes to white visions aloft,
+   Which like efflorescence float up to the skies.
+
+   When at times, in her languor, down on to this sphere,
+   She slyly lets trickle a furtive tear,
+   A poet, desiring slumber to shun,
+
+   Takes up this pale tear in the palm of his hand
+   (The colours of which like an opal blend),
+   And buries it far from the eyes of the sun.
+
+
+
+
+   Cats
+
+
+   All ardent lovers and all sages prize,
+   --As ripening years incline upon their brows--
+   The mild and mighty cats--pride of the house--
+   That like unto them are indolent, stern and wise.
+
+   The friends of Learning and of Ecstasy,
+   They search for silence and the horrors of gloom;
+   The devil had used them for his steeds of Doom,
+   Could he alone have bent their pride to slavery.
+
+   When musing, they display those outlines chaste,
+   Of the great sphinxes--stretched o'er the sandy waste,
+   That seem to slumber deep in a dream without end:
+
+   From out their loins a fountainous furnace flies,
+   And grains of sparkling gold, as fine as sand,
+   Bestar the mystic pupils of their eyes.
+
+
+
+
+   Owls
+
+
+   Beneath the shades of sombre yews,
+   The silent owls sit ranged in rows,
+   Like ancient idols, strangely pose,
+   And darting fiery eyes, they muse.
+
+   Immovable, they sit and gaze,
+   Until the melancholy hour,
+   At which the darknesses devour
+   The faded sunset's slanting rays.
+
+   Their attitude, instructs the wise,
+   That he--within this world--who flies
+   From tumult and from merriment;
+
+   The man allured by a passing face,
+   For ever bears the chastisement
+   Of having wished to change his place.
+
+
+
+
+   Music
+
+
+   Oft Music possesses me like the seas!
+           To my planet pale,
+   'Neath a ceiling of mist, in the lofty breeze,
+           I set my sail.
+
+   With inflated lungs and expanded chest,
+           Like to a sail,
+   On the backs of the heaped-up billows I rest--
+           Which the shadows veil--
+
+   I feel all the anguish within me arise
+           Of a ship in distress;
+   The tempest, the rain, 'neath the lowering skies,
+
+           My body caress;
+   At times, the calm pool or the mirror clear
+           Of my despair!
+
+
+
+
+   The Joyous Defunct
+
+
+   Where snails abound--in a juicy soil,
+   I will dig for myself a fathomless grave,
+   Where at leisure mine ancient bones I can coil,
+   And sleep--quite forgotten--like a shark 'neath the wave.
+
+   I hate every tomb--I abominate wills,
+   And rather than tears from the world to implore,
+   I would ask of the crows with their vampire bills
+   To devour every bit of my carcass impure.
+
+   Oh worms, without eyes, without ears, black friends!
+   To you a defunct-one, rejoicing, descends,
+   Enlivened Philosophers--offspring of Dung!
+
+   Without any qualms, o'er my wreckage spread,
+   And tell if some torment there still can be wrung
+   For this soul-less old frame that is dead 'midst the dead!
+
+
+
+
+   The Broken Bell
+
+
+   How sweet and bitter, on a winter night,
+   Beside the palpitating fire to list,
+   As, slowly, distant memories alight,
+   To sounds of chimes that sing across the mist.
+
+   Oh, happy is that bell with hearty throat,
+   Which neither age nor time can e'er defeat,
+   Which faithfully uplifts its pious note,
+   Like an agèd soldier on his beat.
+
+   For me, my soul is cracked, and 'mid her cares,
+   Would often fill with her songs the midnight airs
+   And oft it chances that her feeble moan
+
+   Is like the wounded warrior's fainting groan,
+   Who by a lake of blood, 'neath bodies slain,
+   In anguish falls, and never moves again.
+
+
+
+
+   Spleen
+
+
+   The rainy moon of all the world is weary,
+   And from its urn a gloomy cold pours down,
+   Upon the pallid inmates of the mortuary,
+   And on the neighbouring outskirts of the town.
+
+   My wasted cat, in searching for a litter,
+   Bestirs its mangy paws from post to post;
+   (A poet's soul that wanders in the gutter,
+   With the jaded voice of a shiv'ring ghost).
+
+   The smoking pine-log, while the drone laments,
+   Accompanies the wheezy pendulum,
+   The while 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 fingers, 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,
+   We 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.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Flowers of Evil, by Charles Baudelaire
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 36098 ***
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+
+
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 36098 ***</div>
+
+
+<h1>THE FLOWERS OF EVIL</h1>
+
+<h3>by</h3>
+
+<h2>CHARLES BAUDELAIRE</h2>
+
+
+<h4>TRANSLATED INTO</h4>
+
+<h4>ENGLISH  VERSE</h4>
+
+
+<h5>BY</h5>
+
+<h3>CYRIL SCOTT</h3>
+
+
+<h5>LONDON</h5>
+
+<h5>ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET</h5>
+
+<h5>M CM IX</h5>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h5>DEDICATED TO ARTHUR SYMONS</h5>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 95%;" />
+
+<p class="margin">
+<span class="caption">CONTENTS</span><br /><br />
+<a href="#Benediction"><b>Benediction</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Echoes"><b>Echoes</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Sick_Muse"><b>The Sick Muse</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Venal_Muse"><b>The Venal Muse</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Evil_Monk"><b>The Evil Monk</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Enemy"><b>The Enemy</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Ill_Luck"><b>Ill Luck</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Interior_Life"><b>Interior Life</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Man_and_the_Sea"><b>Man and the Sea</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Beauty"><b>Beauty</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Ideal"><b>The Ideal</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Giantess"><b>The Giantess</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Hymn_to_Beauty"><b>Hymn to Beauty</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Exotic_Perfume"><b>Exotic Perfume</b></a><br />
+<a href="#La_Chevelure"><b>La Chevelure</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Sonnet_XXVIII"><b>Sonnet XXVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Posthumous_Remorse"><b>Posthumous Remorse</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Balcony"><b>The Balcony</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Possessed_One"><b>The Possessed One</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Semper_Eadem"><b>Semper Eadem</b></a><br />
+<a href="#All_Entire"><b>All Entire</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Sonnet_XLIII"><b>Sonnet XLIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Living_Torch"><b>The Living Torch</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Spiritual_Dawn"><b>The Spiritual Dawn</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Evening_Harmony"><b>Evening Harmony</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Overcast_Sky"><b>Overcast Sky</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Invitation_to_a_Journey"><b>Invitation to a Journey</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Causerie"><b>"Causerie"</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Autumn_Song"><b>Autumn Song</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Sisina"><b>Sisina</b></a><br />
+<a href="#To_a_Creolean_Lady"><b>To a Creolean Lady</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Moesta_et_Errabunda"><b>Moesta et Errabunda</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Ghost"><b>The Ghost</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Autumn_Song_1"><b>Autumn Song</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Sadness_of_the_Moon-Goddess"><b>Sadness of the Moon-Goddess</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Cats"><b>Cats</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Owls"><b>Owls</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Music"><b>Music</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Joyous_Defunct"><b>The Joyous Defunct</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Broken_Bell"><b>The Broken Bell</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Spleen"><b>Spleen</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Obsession"><b>Obsession</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Magnetic_Horror"><b>Magnetic Horror</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Lid"><b>The Lid</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Berthas_Eyes"><b>Bertha's Eyes</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Set_of_the_Romantic_Sun"><b>The Set of the Romantic Sun</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Meditation"><b>Meditation</b></a><br />
+<a href="#To_a_Passer-by"><b>To a Passer-by</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Illusionary_Love"><b>Illusionary Love</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Mists_and_Rains"><b>Mists and Rains</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Wine_of_Lovers"><b>The Wine of Lovers</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Condemned_Women"><b>Condemned Women</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Death_of_the_Lovers"><b>The Death of the Lovers</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Death_of_the_Poor"><b>The Death of the Poor</b></a><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Benediction" id="Benediction"></a>Benediction</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">When by the changeless Power of a Supreme Decree</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The poet issues forth upon this sorry sphere,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">His mother, horrified, and full of blasphemy,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Uplifts her voice to God, who takes compassion on her.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Ah, why did I not bear a serpent's nest entire,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Instead of bringing forth this hideous Child of Doom!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Oh cursèd be that transient night of vain desire</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">When I conceived my expiation in my womb!"</span><br />
+<br />
+"Yet since among all women thou hast chosen me<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To be the degradation of my jaded mate,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And since I cannot like a love-leaf wantonly</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Consign this stunted monster to the glowing grate,"</span><br />
+<br />
+"I'll cause thine overwhelming hatred to rebound<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Upon the cursèd tool of thy most wicked spite.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Forsooth, the branches of this wretched tree I'll wound</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And rob its pestilential blossoms of their might!"</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">So thus, she giveth vent unto her foaming ire,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And knowing not the changeless statutes of all times,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Herself, amid the flames of hell, prepares the pyre;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The consecrated penance of maternal crimes.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Yet 'neath th' invisible shelter of an Angel's wing</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">This sunlight-loving infant disinherited,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Exhales from all he eats and drinks, and everything</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The ever sweet ambrosia and the nectar red.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">He trifles with the winds and with the clouds that glide,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">About the way unto the Cross, he loves to sing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The spirit on his pilgrimage; that faithful guide,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Oft weeps to see him joyful like a bird of Spring.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">All those that he would cherish shrink from him with fear,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And some that waxen bold by his tranquility,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Endeavour hard some grievance from his heart to tear,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And make on him the trial of their ferocity.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Within the bread and wine outspread for his repast</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To mingle dust and dirty spittle they essay,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And everything he touches, forth they slyly cast,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Or scourge themselves, if e'er their feet betrod his way.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">His wife goes round proclaiming in the crowded quads&mdash;</span><br />
+"Since he can find my body beauteous to behold,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Why not perform the office of those ancient gods</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And like unto them, redeck myself with shining gold?"</span><br />
+<br />
+"I'll bathe myself with incense, spikenard and myrrh,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">With genuflexions, delicate viandes and wine,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To see, in jest, if from a heart, that loves me dear,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I cannot filch away the hommages divine."</span><br />
+<br />
+"And when of these impious jokes at length I tire,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">My frail but mighty hands, around his breast entwined,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">With nails, like harpies' nails, shall cunningly conspire</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The hidden path unto his feeble heart to find."</span><br />
+<br />
+"And like a youngling bird that trembles in its nest,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I'll pluck his heart right out; within its own blood drowned,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And finally to satiate my favourite beast,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I'll throw it with intense disdain upon the ground!"</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Towards the Heavens where he sees the sacred grail</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The poet calmly stretches forth his pious arms,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Whereon the lightenings from his lucid spirit veil</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The sight of the infuriated mob that swarms.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Oh blest be thou, Almighty who bestowest pain,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Like some divine redress for our infirmities,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And like the most refreshing and the purest rain,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To sanctify the strong, for saintly ecstasies."</span><br />
+<br />
+"I know that for the poet thou wilt grant a chair,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Among the Sainted Legion and the Blissful ones,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">That of the endless feast thou wilt accord his share</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To him, of Virtues, Dominations and of Thrones."</span><br />
+<br />
+"I know, that Sorrow is that nobleness alone,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Which never may corrupted be by hell nor curse,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I know, in order to enwreathe my mystic crown</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I must inspire the ages and the universe."</span><br />
+<br />
+"And yet the buried jewels of Palmyra old,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The undiscovered metals and the pearly sea</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of gems, that unto me you show could never hold</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Beside this diadem of blinding brilliancy."</span><br />
+<br />
+"For it shall be engendered from the purest fire<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of rays primeval, from the holy hearth amassed,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of which the eyes of Mortals, in their sheen entire,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Are but the tarnished mirrors, sad and overcast!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Echoes" id="Echoes"></a>Echoes</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+In Nature's temple, living columns rise,<br />
+Which oftentimes give tongue to words subdued,<br />
+And Man traverses this symbolic wood,<br />
+Which looks at him with half familiar eyes,<br />
+<br />
+Like lingering echoes, which afar confound<br />
+Themselves in deep and sombre unity,<br />
+As vast as Night, and like transplendency,<br />
+The scents and colours to each other respond.<br />
+<br />
+And scents there are, like infant's flesh as chaste,<br />
+As sweet as oboes, and as meadows fair,<br />
+And others, proud, corrupted, rich and vast,<br />
+<br />
+Which have the expansion of infinity,<br />
+Like amber, musk and frankincense and myrrh,<br />
+That sing the soul's and senses' ecstasy.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Sick_Muse" id="The_Sick_Muse"></a>The Sick Muse</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Alas&mdash;my poor Muse&mdash;what aileth thee now?<br />
+Thine eyes are bedimmed with the visions of Night,<br />
+And silent and cold&mdash;I perceive on thy brow<br />
+In their turns&mdash;Despair and Madness alight.<br />
+<br />
+A succubus green, or a hobgoblin red,<br />
+Has it poured o'er thee Horror and Love from its urn?<br />
+Or the Nightmare with masterful bearing hath led<br />
+Thee to drown in the depths of some magic Minturne?<br />
+<br />
+I wish, as the health-giving fragrance I cull,<br />
+That thy breast with strong thoughts could for ever be full,<br />
+And that rhymthmic'ly flowing&mdash;thy Christian blood<br />
+<br />
+Could resemble the olden-time metrical-flood,<br />
+Where each in his turn reigned the father of Rhymes<br />
+Phoebus&mdash;and Pan, lord of Harvest-times.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Venal_Muse" id="The_Venal_Muse"></a>The Venal Muse</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Oh Muse of my heart&mdash;so fond of palaces old,<br />
+Wilt have&mdash;when New Year speeds its wintry blast,<br />
+Amid those tedious nights, with snow o'ercast,<br />
+A log to warm thy feet, benumbed with cold?<br />
+<br />
+Wilt thou thy marbled shoulders then revive<br />
+With nightly rays that through thy shutters peep?<br />
+And&mdash;void thy purse and void thy palace&mdash;reap<br />
+A golden hoard within some azure hive?<br />
+<br />
+Thou must, to earn thy daily bread, each night,<br />
+Suspend the censer like an acolyte,<br />
+Te-Deums sing, with sanctimonious ease,<br />
+<br />
+Or as a famished mountebank, with jokes obscene<br />
+Essay to lull the vulgar rabble's spleen;<br />
+Thy laughter soaked in tears which no one sees.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Evil_Monk" id="The_Evil_Monk"></a>The Evil Monk</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+The cloisters old, expounded on their walls<br />
+With paintings, the Beatic Verity,<br />
+The which&mdash;adorning their religious halls,<br />
+Enriched the frigidness of their Austerity.<br />
+<br />
+In days when Christian seeds bloomed o'er the land,<br />
+Full many a noble monk unknown to-day,<br />
+Upon the field of tombs would take his stand,<br />
+Exalting Death in rude and simple way.<br />
+<br />
+My soul is a tomb where&mdash;bad monk that I be&mdash;<br />
+I dwell and search its depths from all eternity,<br />
+And nought bedecks the walls of the odious spot.<br />
+<br />
+Oh sluggard monk! when shall I glean aright<br />
+From the living spectacle of my bitter lot,<br />
+To mold my handywork and mine eyes' Delight?<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Enemy" id="The_Enemy"></a>The Enemy</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+My childhood was nought but a ravaging storm,<br />
+Enlivened at times by a brilliant sun;<br />
+The rain and the winds wrought such havoc and harm<br />
+That of buds on my plot there remains hardly one.<br />
+<br />
+Behold now the Fall of ideas I have reached,<br />
+And the shovel and rake one must therefore resume,<br />
+In collecting the turf, inundated and breached,<br />
+Where the waters dug trenches as deep as a tomb.<br />
+<br />
+And yet these new blossoms, for which I craved,<br />
+Will they find in this earth&mdash;like a shore that is laved&mdash;<br />
+The mystical fuel which vigour imparts?<br />
+<br />
+Oh misery!&mdash;Time devours our lives,<br />
+And the enemy black, which consumeth our hearts<br />
+On the blood of our bodies, increases and thrives!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Ill_Luck" id="Ill_Luck"></a>Ill Luck</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+This heavy burden to uplift,<br />
+O Sysiphus, thy pluck is required!<br />
+And even though the heart aspired,<br />
+Art is long and Time is swift.<br />
+<br />
+Afar from sepulchres renowned,<br />
+To a graveyard, quite apart,<br />
+Like a broken drum, my heart,<br />
+Beats the funeral marches' sound.<br />
+<br />
+Many a buried jewel sleeps<br />
+In the long-forgotten deeps,<br />
+Far from mattock and from sound;<br />
+<br />
+Many a flower wafts aloft<br />
+Its perfumes, like a secret soft,<br />
+Within the solitudes, profound.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Interior_Life" id="Interior_Life"></a>Interior Life</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+A long while I dwelt beneath vast porticoes,<br />
+While the ocean-suns bathed with a thousand fires,<br />
+And which with their great and majestic spires,<br />
+At eventide looked like basaltic grottoes.<br />
+<br />
+The billows, in rolling depictured the skies,<br />
+And mingled, in solemn and mystical strain,<br />
+The all-mighteous chords of their luscious refrain<br />
+With the sun-set's colours reflexed in mine eyes.<br />
+<br />
+It is there that I lived in exalted calm,<br />
+In the midst of the azure, the splendour, the waves,<br />
+While pregnant with perfumes, naked slaves<br />
+<br />
+Refreshed my forehead with branches of palm,<br />
+Whose gentle and only care was to know<br />
+The secret that caused me to languish so.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Man_and_the_Sea" id="Man_and_the_Sea"></a>Man and the Sea</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Free man! the sea is to thee ever dear!<br />
+The sea is thy mirror, thou regardest thy soul<br />
+In its mighteous waves that unendingly roll,<br />
+And thy spirit is yet not a chasm less drear.<br />
+<br />
+Thou delight'st to plunge deep in thine image down;<br />
+Thou tak'st it with eyes and with arms in embrace,<br />
+And at times thine own inward voice would'st efface<br />
+With the sound of its savage ungovernable moan.<br />
+<br />
+You are both of you, sombre, secretive and deep:<br />
+Oh mortal, thy depths are foraye unexplored,<br />
+Oh sea&mdash;no one knoweth thy dazzling hoard,<br />
+You both are so jealous your secrets to keep!<br />
+<br />
+And endless ages have wandered by,<br />
+Yet still without pity or mercy you fight,<br />
+So mighty in plunder and death your delight:<br />
+Oh wrestlers! so constant in enmity!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Beauty" id="Beauty"></a>Beauty</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+I am lovely, O mortals, like a dream of stone,<br />
+And my bosom, where each one gets bruised in turn,<br />
+To inspire the love of a poet is prone,<br />
+Like matter eternally silent and stern.<br />
+<br />
+As an unfathomed sphinx, enthroned by the Nile,<br />
+My heart a swan's whiteness with granite combines,<br />
+And I hate every movement, displacing the lines,<br />
+And never I weep and never I smile.<br />
+<br />
+The poets in front of mine attitudes fine<br />
+(Which the proudest of monuments seem to implant),<br />
+To studies profound all their moments assign,<br />
+<br />
+For I have all these docile swains to enchant&mdash;<br />
+Two mirrors, which Beauty in all things ignite:<br />
+Mine eyes, my large eyes, of eternal Light!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Ideal" id="The_Ideal"></a>The Ideal</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+It could ne'er be those beauties of ivory vignettes;<br />
+The varied display of a worthless age,<br />
+Nor puppet-like figures with castonets,<br />
+That ever an heart like mine could engage.<br />
+<br />
+I leave to Gavarni, that poet of chlorosis,<br />
+His hospital-beauties in troups that whirl,<br />
+For I cannot discover amid his pale roses<br />
+A flower to resemble my scarlet ideal.<br />
+<br />
+Since, what for this fathomless heart I require<br />
+Is&mdash;Lady Macbeth you! in crime so dire;<br />
+&mdash;An Æschylus dream transposed from the South&mdash;<br />
+<br />
+Or thee, oh great "Night" of Michael-Angelo born,<br />
+Who so calmly thy limbs in strange posture hath drawn,<br />
+Whose allurements are framed for a Titan's mouth.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Giantess" id="The_Giantess"></a>The Giantess</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+I should have loved&mdash;erewhile when Heaven conceived<br />
+Each day, some child abnormal and obscene,<br />
+Beside a maiden giantess to have lived,<br />
+Like a luxurious cat at the feet of a queen;<br />
+<br />
+To see her body flowering with her soul,<br />
+And grow, unchained, in awe-inspiring art,<br />
+Within the mists across her eyes that stole<br />
+To divine the fires entombed within her heart.<br />
+<br />
+And oft to scramble o'er her mighty limbs,<br />
+And climb the slopes of her enormous knees,<br />
+Or in summer when the scorching sunlight streams<br />
+<br />
+Across the country, to recline at ease,<br />
+And slumber in the shadow of her breast<br />
+Like an hamlet 'neath the mountain-crest.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Hymn_to_Beauty" id="Hymn_to_Beauty"></a>Hymn to Beauty</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+O Beauty! dost thou generate from Heaven or from Hell?<br />
+Within thy glance, so diabolic and divine,<br />
+Confusedly both wickedness and goodness dwell,<br />
+And hence one might compare thee unto sparkling wine.<br />
+<br />
+Thy look containeth both the dawn and sunset stars,<br />
+Thy perfumes, as upon a sultry night exhale,<br />
+Thy kiss a philter, and thy mouth a Grecian vase,<br />
+That renders heroes cowardly and infants hale.<br />
+<br />
+Yea, art thou from the planets, or the fiery womb?<br />
+The demon follows in thy train, with magic fraught,<br />
+Thou scatter'st seeds haphazardly of joy and doom,<br />
+Thou govern'st everything, but answer'st unto nought.<br />
+<br />
+O Loveliness! thou spurnest corpses with delight,<br />
+Among thy jewels, Horror hath such charms for thee,<br />
+And Murder 'mid thy mostly cherished trinklets bright,<br />
+Upon thy massive bosom dances amorously.<br />
+<br />
+The blinded, fluttering moth towards the candle flies,<br />
+Then frizzles, falls, and falters&mdash;"Blessings unto thee"&mdash;<br />
+The panting swain that o'er his beauteous mistress sighs,<br />
+Seems like the Sick, that stroke their gravestones lovingly.<br />
+<br />
+What matter, if thou comest from the Heavens or Hell,<br />
+O Beauty, frightful ghoul, ingenuous and obscure!<br />
+So long thine eyes, thy smile, to me the way can tell<br />
+Towards that Infinite I love, but never saw.<br />
+<br />
+From God or Satan? Angel, Mermaid, Proserpine?<br />
+What matter if thou makest&mdash;blithe, voluptuous sprite&mdash;<br />
+With rhythms, perfumes, visions&mdash;O mine only queen!&mdash;<br />
+The universe less hideous and the hours less trite.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Exotic_Perfume" id="Exotic_Perfume"></a>Exotic Perfume</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+When, with closed eyes, on a hot afternoon,<br />
+The scent of thine ardent breast I inhale,<br />
+Celestial vistas my spirit assail;<br />
+Caressed by the flames of an endless sun.<br />
+<br />
+A langorous island, where Nature abounds<br />
+With exotic trees and luscious fruit;<br />
+And with men whose bodies are slim and astute,<br />
+And with women whose frankness delights and astounds.<br />
+<br />
+By thy perfume enticed to this region remote,<br />
+A port I see, laden with mast and with boat,<br />
+Still wearied and torn by the distant brine;<br />
+<br />
+While the tamarisk-odours that dreamily throng<br />
+The air, round my slumberous senses intwine,<br />
+And mix, in my soul, with the mariners' song.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="La_Chevelure" id="La_Chevelure"></a>La Chevelure</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+O fleece, that foams down unto the shoulders bare!<br />
+O curls, O scents which lovely languidness exhale!<br />
+Delight! to fill this alcove's sombre atmosphere<br />
+With memories, sleeping deep within this tress of hair,<br />
+I'll wave it in the evening breezes like a veil!<br />
+<br />
+The shores of Africa, and Asia's burning skies,<br />
+A world forgotten, distant, nearly dead and spent,<br />
+Within thy depths, O aromatic forest! lies.<br />
+And like to spirits floating unto melodies,<br />
+Mine own, Belovèd! glides within thy sacred scent.<br />
+<br />
+There I will hasten, where the trees and humankind<br />
+With languor lull beside the hot and silent sea;<br />
+Strong tresses bear me, be to me the waves and wind!<br />
+Within thy fragrance lies a dazzling dream confined<br />
+Of sails and masts and flames&mdash;O lake of ebony!<br />
+<br />
+A loudly echoing harbour, where my soul may hold<br />
+To quaff, the silver cup of colours, scents and sounds,<br />
+Wherein the vessels glide upon a sea of gold,<br />
+And stretch their mighty arms, the glory to enfold<br />
+Of virgin skies, where never-ending heat abounds.<br />
+<br />
+I'll plunge my brow, enamoured with voluptuousness<br />
+Within this darkling ocean of infinitude,<br />
+Until my subtle spirit, which thy waves caress,<br />
+Shall find you once again, O fertile weariness;<br />
+Unending lullabye of perfumed lassitude!<br />
+<br />
+Ye tresses blue&mdash;recess of strange and sombre shades,<br />
+Ye make the azure of the starry Realm immense;<br />
+Upon the downy beeches, by your curls' cascades,<br />
+Among your mingling fragrances, my spirit wades<br />
+To cull the musk and cocoa-nut and lotus scents.<br />
+<br />
+Long&mdash;foraye&mdash;my hand, within thy heavy mane,<br />
+Shall scatter rubies, pearls, sapphires eternally,<br />
+And thus my soul's desire for thee shall never wane;<br />
+For art not thou the oasis where I dream and drain<br />
+With draughts profound, the golden wine of memory?<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Sonnet_XXVIII" id="Sonnet_XXVIII"></a>Sonnet XXVIII</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+With pearly robes that wave within the wind,<br />
+Even when she walks, she seems to dance,<br />
+Like swaying serpents round those wands entwined<br />
+Which fakirs ware in rhythmic elegance.<br />
+<br />
+So like the desert's Blue, and the sands remote,<br />
+Both, deaf to mortal suffering and to strife,<br />
+Or like the sea-weeds 'neath the waves that float,<br />
+Indifferently she moulds her budding life.<br />
+<br />
+Her polished eyes are made of minerals bright,<br />
+And in her mien, symbolical and cold,<br />
+Wherein an angel mingles with a sphinx of old,<br />
+<br />
+Where all is gold, and steel, and gems, and light,<br />
+There shines, just like a useless star eternally,<br />
+The sterile woman's frigid majesty.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Posthumous_Remorse" id="Posthumous_Remorse"></a>Posthumous Remorse</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Ah, when thou shalt slumber, my darkling love,<br />
+Beneath a black marble-made statuette,<br />
+And when thou'lt have nought for thy house or alcove,<br />
+But a cavernous den and a damp oubliette.<br />
+<br />
+When the tomb-stone, oppressing thy timorous breast,<br />
+And thy hips drooping sweetly with listless decay,<br />
+The pulse and desires of mine heart shall arrest,<br />
+And thy feet from pursuing their adventurous way,<br />
+<br />
+Then the grave, that dark friend of my limitless dreams<br />
+(For the grave ever readeth the poet aright),<br />
+Amid those long nights, which no slumber redeems<br />
+<br />
+'Twill query&mdash;"What use to thee, incomplete spright<br />
+That thou ne'er hast unfathomed the tears of the dead"?&mdash;<br />
+Then the worms will gnaw deep at thy body, like Dread.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Balcony" id="The_Balcony"></a>The Balcony</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Oh, Mother of Memories! Mistress of Mistresses!<br />
+Oh, thou all my pleasures, oh, thou all my prayers!<br />
+Can'st thou remember those luscious caresses,<br />
+The charm of the hearth and the sweet evening airs?<br />
+Oh, Mother, of Memories, Mistress of Mistresses!<br />
+<br />
+Those evenings illumed by the glow of the coal,<br />
+And those roseate nights with their vaporous wings,<br />
+How calm was thy breast and how good was thy soul,<br />
+'Twas then we uttered imperishable things,<br />
+Those evenings illumed by the glow of the coal.<br />
+<br />
+How lovely the suns on those hot, autumn nights!<br />
+How vast were the heavens! and the heart how hale!<br />
+As I leaned towards you&mdash;oh, my Queen of Delights,<br />
+The scent of thy blood I seemed to inhale.<br />
+How lovely the sun on those hot, autumn nights!<br />
+<br />
+The shadows of night-time grew dense like a pall,<br />
+And deep through the darkness thine eyes I divined,<br />
+And I drank of thy breath&mdash;oh sweetness, oh gall,<br />
+And thy feet in my brotherly hands reclined,<br />
+The shadows of Night-time grew dense like a pall.<br />
+<br />
+I know how to call forth those moments so dear,<br />
+And to live my Past&mdash;laid on thy knees&mdash;once more,<br />
+For where should I seek for thy beauties but here<br />
+In thy langorous heart and thy body so pure?<br />
+I know how to call forth those moments so dear.<br />
+<br />
+Those perfumes, those infinite kisses and sighs,<br />
+Are they born in some gulf to our plummets denied?<br />
+Like rejuvenate suns that mount up to the skies,<br />
+That first have been cleansed in the depths of the tide;<br />
+Oh, perfumes! oh, infinite kisses and sighs!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Possessed_One" id="The_Possessed_One"></a>The Possessed One</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+The sun is enveloped in crape! like it,<br />
+O Moon of my Life! wrap thyself up in shade;<br />
+At will, smoke or slumber, be silent, be staid,<br />
+And dive deep down in Dispassion's dark pit.<br />
+<br />
+I cherish thee thus! But if 'tis thy mood,<br />
+Like a star that from out its penumbra appears,<br />
+To float in the regions where madness careers,<br />
+Fair dagger! burst forth from thy sheath! 'tis good.<br />
+<br />
+Yea, light up thine eyes at the Fire of Renown!<br />
+Or kindle desire by the looks of some clown!<br />
+Thine All is my joy, whether dull or aflame!<br />
+<br />
+Just be what thou wilt, black night, dawn divine,<br />
+There is not a nerve in my trembling frame<br />
+But cries, "I adore thee, Beelzebub mine!"<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Semper_Eadem" id="Semper_Eadem"></a>Semper Eadem</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+"From whence it comes, you ask, this gloom acute,<br />
+Like waves that o'er the rocky headland fall?"<br />
+&mdash;When once our hearts have gathered in their fruit,<br />
+To live is a curse! a secret known to all,<br />
+<br />
+A grief, quite simple, nought mysterious,<br />
+And like your joy&mdash;for all, both loud and shrill,<br />
+Nay cease to clamour, be not e'er so curious!<br />
+And yet although your voice is sweet, be still!<br />
+<br />
+Be still, O soul, with rapture ever rife!<br />
+O mouth, with the childish smile! Far more than Life,<br />
+The subtle bonds of Death around us twine.<br />
+<br />
+Let&mdash;let my heart, the wine of falsehood drink,<br />
+And dream-like, deep within your fair eyes sink,<br />
+And in the shade of thy lashes long recline!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="All_Entire" id="All_Entire"></a>All Entire</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The Demon, in my lofty vault,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">This morning came to visit me,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And striving me to find at fault,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">He said, "Fain would I know of thee;</span><br />
+<br />
+"Among the many beauteous things,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">&mdash;All which <i>her</i> subtle grace proclaim&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Among the dark and rosy things,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Which go to make her charming frame,</span><br />
+<br />
+"Which is the sweetest unto thee"?<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">My soul! to Him thou didst retort&mdash;</span><br />
+"Since all with her is destiny,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of preference there can be nought.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">When all transports me with delight,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">If aught deludes I can not know,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">She either lulls one like the Night,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Or dazzles like the Morning-glow.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">That harmony is too divine,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Which governs all her body fair,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">For powerless mortals to define</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">In notes the many concords there.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">O mystic metamorphosis</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of all my senses blent in one!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Her voice a beauteous perfume is,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Her breath makes music, chaste and wan.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Sonnet_XLIII" id="Sonnet_XLIII"></a>Sonnet XLIII</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+What sayest thou, to-night, poor soul so drear,<br />
+What sayest&mdash;heart erewhile engulfed in gloom,<br />
+To the very lovely, very chaste, and very dear,<br />
+Whose god-like look hath made thee to re-bloom?<br />
+<br />
+To her, with pride we chant an echoing Hymn,<br />
+For nought can touch the sweetness of her sway;<br />
+Her flesh ethereal as the seraphim,<br />
+Her eyes with robe of light our souls array.<br />
+<br />
+And be it in the night, or solitude,<br />
+Among the streets or 'mid the multitude,<br />
+Her shadow, torch-like, dances in the air,<br />
+<br />
+And murmurs, "I, the Beautiful proclaim&mdash;<br />
+That for my sake, alone ye love the Fair;<br />
+I am the Guardian Angel, Muse and Dame!"<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Living_Torch" id="The_Living_Torch"></a>The Living Torch</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+They stand before me now, those eyes that shine,<br />
+No doubt inspired by an Angel wise;<br />
+They stand, those God-like brothers that are mine,<br />
+And pour their diamond fires in mine eyes.<br />
+<br />
+From all transgressions, from all snares, they save,<br />
+Towards the Path of Joy they guide my ways;<br />
+They are my servants, and I am their slave;<br />
+And all my soul, this living torch obeys.<br />
+<br />
+Ye charming Eyes&mdash;ye have those mystic beams,<br />
+Of candles, burning in full day; the sun<br />
+Awakes, yet kills not their fantastic gleams:<br />
+<br />
+Ye sing the Awak'ning, they the dark oblivion;<br />
+The Awak'ning of my spirit ye proclaim,<br />
+O stars&mdash;no sun can ever kill your flame!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Spiritual_Dawn" id="The_Spiritual_Dawn"></a>The Spiritual Dawn</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+When the morning white and rosy breaks,<br />
+With the gnawing Ideal, upon the debauchee,<br />
+By the power of a strange decree,<br />
+Within the sotted beast an Angel wakes.<br />
+<br />
+The mental Heaven's inaccessible blue,<br />
+For wearied mortals that still dream and mourn,<br />
+Expands and sinks; towards the chasm drawn.<br />
+Thus, cherished goddess, Being pure and true&mdash;<br />
+<br />
+Upon the rests of foolish orgy-nights<br />
+Thine image, more sublime, more pink, more clear,<br />
+Before my staring eyes is ever there.<br />
+<br />
+The sun has darkened all the candle lights;<br />
+And thus thy spectre like the immortal sun,<br />
+Is ever victorious&mdash;thou resplendent one!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Evening_Harmony" id="Evening_Harmony"></a>Evening Harmony</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+The hour approacheth, when, as their stems incline,<br />
+The flowers evaporate like an incense urn,<br />
+And sounds and scents in the vesper breezes turn;<br />
+A melancholy waltz&mdash;and a drowsiness divine.<br />
+<br />
+The flowers evaporate like an incense urn,<br />
+The viol vibrates like the wailing of souls that repine.<br />
+A melancholy waltz&mdash;and a drowsiness divine,<br />
+The skies like a mosque are beautiful and stern.<br />
+<br />
+The viol vibrates like the wailing of souls that repine;<br />
+Sweet souls that shrink from chaos vast and etern,<br />
+The skies like a mosque are beautiful and stern,<br />
+The sunset drowns within its blood-red brine.<br />
+<br />
+Sweet souls that shrink from chaos vast and etern,<br />
+Essay the wreaths of their faded Past to entwine,<br />
+The sunset drowns within its blood-red brine,<br />
+Thy thought within me glows like an incense urn.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Overcast_Sky" id="Overcast_Sky"></a>Overcast Sky</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Meseemeth thy glance, soft enshrouded with dew,<br />
+Thy mysterious eyes (are they grey, green or blue?),<br />
+Alternately cruel, and tender, and shy,<br />
+Reflect both the languor and calm of the sky.<br />
+<br />
+Thou recallest those white days&mdash;with shadows caressed,<br />
+Engendering tears from th' enraptured breast,<br />
+When racked by an anguish unfathomed that weeps,<br />
+The nerves, too awake, jibe the spirit that sleeps.<br />
+<br />
+At times&mdash;thou art like those horizons divine,<br />
+Where the suns of the nebulous seasons decline;<br />
+How resplendent art thou&mdash;O pasturage vast,<br />
+Illumed by the beams of a sky overcast!<br />
+<br />
+O! dangerous dame&mdash;oh seductive clime!<br />
+As well, will I love both thy snow and thy rime,<br />
+And shall I know how from the frosts to entice<br />
+Delights that are keener than iron and ice?<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Invitation_to_a_Journey" id="Invitation_to_a_Journey"></a>Invitation to a Journey</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My sister, my dear</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Consider how fair,</span><br />
+Together to live it would be!<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Down yonder to fly</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To love, till we die,</span><br />
+In the land which resembles thee.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Those suns that rise</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Neath erratic skies,</span><br />
+&mdash;No charm could be like unto theirs&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So strange and divine,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Like those eyes of thine</span><br />
+Which glow in the midst of their tears.<br />
+<br />
+There, all is order and loveliness,<br />
+Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The tables and chairs,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Polished bright by the years,</span><br />
+Would decorate sweetly our rooms,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the rarest of flowers</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Would twine round our bowers</span><br />
+And mingle their amber perfumes:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The ceilings arrayed,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the mirrors inlaid,</span><br />
+This Eastern splendour among,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Would furtively steal</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O'er our souls, and appeal</span><br />
+With its tranquillous native tongue.<br />
+<br />
+There, all is order and loveliness,<br />
+Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the harbours, peep,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">At the vessels asleep</span><br />
+(Their humour is always to roam),<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet it is but to grant</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy smallest want</span><br />
+From the ends of the earth that they come,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The sunsets beam</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Upon meadow and stream,</span><br />
+And upon the city entire<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Neath a violet crest,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The world sinks to rest,</span><br />
+Illumed by a golden fire.<br />
+<br />
+There, all is order and loveliness,<br />
+Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Causerie" id="Causerie"></a>"Causerie"</h3>
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+You are a roseate autumn-sky, that glows!<br />
+Yet sadness rises in me like the flood,<br />
+And leaves in ebbing on my lips morose,<br />
+The poignant memory of its bitter mind.<br />
+<br />
+In vain your hands my swooning breast embrace,<br />
+Oh, friend! alone remains the plundered spot,<br />
+Where woman's biting grip has left its trace:<br />
+My heart, the beasts devoured--seek it not!<br />
+<br />
+My heart is a palace pillaged by the herd;<br />
+They kill and take each other by the throat!<br />
+A perfume glides around your bosom bared--<br />
+<br />
+O loveliness, thou scourge of souls--devote<br />
+Thine eyes of fire--luminous-like feasts,<br />
+To burn these rags--rejected by the beasts!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Autumn_Song" id="Autumn_Song"></a>Autumn Song</h3>
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+I<br />
+<br />
+Shortly we will plunge within the frigid gloom,<br />
+Farewell swift summer brightness; all too short--<br />
+I hear already sounding with a death-like boom<br />
+The wood that falls upon the pavement of the court.<br />
+<br />
+The whole of winter enters in my Being--pain,<br />
+Hate, honor, labour hard and forced--and dread,<br />
+And like the northern sun upon its polar plane<br />
+My heart will soon be but a stone, iced and red.<br />
+<br />
+I listen trembling unto every log that falls,<br />
+The scaffold, which they build, has not a duller sound,<br />
+My spirits waver, like the trembling tower walls<br />
+that shake--with every echoing blow the builders pound.<br />
+<br />
+Meeseemeth--as to these monotonous blows I sway,<br />
+They nail for one a coffin lid, or sound a knell--<br />
+For whom? Autumn now--and summer yesterday!<br />
+This strange mysterious noise betokens a farewell.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+II<br />
+<br />
+I love within your oblong eyes the verdant rays,<br />
+My sweet! but bitter everything to-day meseems:<br />
+And nought--your love, the boudoir, nor the flickering blaze,<br />
+Can replace the sun that o'er the screen streams.<br />
+<br />
+And yet bemother and caress me, tender heart!<br />
+Even me the thankless and the worthless one;<br />
+Beloved or sister--unto me the sweets impart<br />
+Of a glorious autumn or a sinking sun.<br />
+<br />
+Ephemeral task! the beckoning the beckoning empty tomb is set!<br />
+Oh grant me--as upon your knees my head I lay,<br />
+(Because the white and torrid summer I regret),<br />
+To taste the parted season's mild and amber ray.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Sisina" id="Sisina"></a>Sisina</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Imagine Diana in gorgeous array,<br />
+How into the forests and thickets she flies,<br />
+With her hair in the breezes, and flushed for the fray,<br />
+How the very best riders she proudly defies.<br />
+<br />
+Have you seen Théroigne, of the blood-thirsty heart,<br />
+As an unshod herd to attack he bestirs,<br />
+With cheeks all inflamed, playing up to his part,<br />
+As he goes, sword in hand, up the royal stairs?<br />
+<br />
+And so is Sisina&mdash;yet this warrior sweet,<br />
+Has a soul with compassion and kindness replete,<br />
+Inspired by drums and by powder, her sway<br />
+<br />
+Knows how to concede to the supplicants' prayers,<br />
+And her bosom, laid waste by the flames, has alway,<br />
+For those that are worthy, a fountain of tears.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="To_a_Creolean_Lady" id="To_a_Creolean_Lady"></a>To a Creolean Lady</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+In a country perfumed with the sun's embrace,<br />
+I knew 'neath a dais of purpled palms,<br />
+And branches where idleness weeps o'er one's face,<br />
+A Creolean lady of unknown charms.<br />
+<br />
+Her tint, pale and warm&mdash;this bewitching bride,<br />
+Displays a nobly nurtured mien,<br />
+Courageous and grand like a huntsman, her stride;<br />
+A tranquil smile and eyes serene.<br />
+<br />
+If, madam, you'd go to the true land of gain,<br />
+By the banks of the verdant Loire or the Seine,<br />
+How worthy to garnish some pile of renown.<br />
+<br />
+You'd awake in the calm of some shadowy nest,<br />
+A thousand songs in the poet's breast,<br />
+That your eyes would inspire far more than your brown.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Moesta_et_Errabunda" id="Moesta_et_Errabunda"></a>Moesta et Errabunda</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Oh, Agatha, tell! does thy heart not at times fly away?<br />
+Far from the city impure and the lowering sea,<br />
+To another ocean that blinds with its dazzling array,<br />
+So blue and so clear and profound, like virginity?<br />
+Oh, Agatha, tell! does thy heart not at times fly away?<br />
+<br />
+The sea, the vast ocean our travail and trouble consoles!<br />
+What demon hath gifted the sea with a voice from on high,<br />
+To sing us (attuned to an Æolus-organ that rolls<br />
+Forth a grumbling burden) a lenitive lullabye?<br />
+The sea, the vast ocean our travail and trouble consoles!<br />
+<br />
+Oh, carry me, waggons, oh, sailing-ships, help me depart!<br />
+Far, far, here the dust is quite wet with our showering tears,<br />
+Oh, say! it is true that Agatha's desolate heart,<br />
+Proclaimeth, "Away from remorse, and from crimes, and from cares,"<br />
+Oh, carry me, waggons, oh, sailing ships, help me depart!<br />
+<br />
+How distant you seem to be, perfumed Elysian fields!<br />
+Wherein there is nothing but sunshine and love and glee;<br />
+Where all that one loves is so worthy, and lovingly yields,<br />
+And our hearts float about in the purest of ecstasy,<br />
+How distant you seem to be, perfumed Elysian fields!<br />
+<br />
+But the green paradise of those transient infantile loves,<br />
+The strolls, and the songs, and the kisses, and bunches of flowers,<br />
+The viols vibrating beyond, in the mountainous groves,<br />
+With the chalice of wine and the evening, entwined, in the bowers,<br />
+But the green paradise of those transient infantile loves.<br />
+<br />
+That innocent heaven o'erflowing with furtive delight,<br />
+Than China or India, is it still further away?<br />
+Or, could one with pityful prayers bring it back to our sight?<br />
+Or yet with a silvery voice o'er the ages convey<br />
+That innocent heaven o'erflowing with furtive delight!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Ghost" id="The_Ghost"></a>The Ghost</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Just like an angel with evil eye,<br />
+I shall return to thee silently,<br />
+Upon thy bower I'll alight,<br />
+With falling shadows of the night.<br />
+<br />
+With thee, my brownie, I'll commune,<br />
+And give thee kisses cold as the moon,<br />
+And with a serpent's moist embrace,<br />
+I'll crawl around thy resting-place.<br />
+<br />
+And when the livid morning falls,<br />
+Thou'lt find alone the empty walls,<br />
+And till the evening, cold 'twill be.<br />
+<br />
+As others with their tenderness,<br />
+Upon thy life and youthfulness,<br />
+I'll reign alone with dread o'er thee.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Autumn_Song_1" id="Autumn_Song_1"></a>Autumn Song</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+They ask me&mdash;thy crystalline eyes, so acute,<br />
+"Odd lover&mdash;why am I to thee so dear?"<br />
+&mdash;Be sweet and keep silent, my heart, which is sear,<br />
+For all save the rude and untutored brute,<br />
+<br />
+Is loth its infernal depths to reveal,<br />
+And its dissolute motto engraven with fire,<br />
+Oh charmer! whose arms endless slumber inspire!<br />
+I abominate passion and wit makes me ill.<br />
+<br />
+So let us love gently. Within his retreat,<br />
+Foreboding, Love seeks for his arrows a prey,<br />
+I know all the arms of his battle array.<br />
+<br />
+Delirium and loathing&mdash;O pale Marguerite!<br />
+Like me, art thou not an autumnal ray,<br />
+Alas my so white, my so cold Marguerite!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Sadness_of_the_Moon-Goddess" id="Sadness_of_the_Moon-Goddess"></a>Sadness of the Moon-Goddess</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+To-night the Moon dreams with increased weariness,<br />
+Like a beauty stretched forth on a downy heap<br />
+Of rugs, while her languorous fingers caress<br />
+The contour of her breasts, before falling to sleep.<br />
+<br />
+On the satin back of the avalanche soft,<br />
+She falls into lingering swoons, as she dies,<br />
+While she lifteth her eyes to white visions aloft,<br />
+Which like efflorescence float up to the skies.<br />
+<br />
+When at times, in her languor, down on to this sphere,<br />
+She slyly lets trickle a furtive tear,<br />
+A poet, desiring slumber to shun,<br />
+<br />
+Takes up this pale tear in the palm of his hand<br />
+(The colours of which like an opal blend),<br />
+And buries it far from the eyes of the sun.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Cats" id="Cats"></a>Cats</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+All ardent lovers and all sages prize,<br />
+&mdash;As ripening years incline upon their brows&mdash;<br />
+The mild and mighty cats&mdash;pride of the house&mdash;<br />
+That like unto them are indolent, stern and wise.<br />
+<br />
+The friends of Learning and of Ecstasy,<br />
+They search for silence and the horrors of gloom;<br />
+The devil had used them for his steeds of Doom,<br />
+Could he alone have bent their pride to slavery.<br />
+<br />
+When musing, they display those outlines chaste,<br />
+Of the great sphinxes&mdash;stretched o'er the sandy waste,<br />
+That seem to slumber deep in a dream without end:<br />
+<br />
+From out their loins a fountainous furnace flies,<br />
+And grains of sparkling gold, as fine as sand,<br />
+Bestar the mystic pupils of their eyes.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Owls" id="Owls"></a>Owls</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Beneath the shades of sombre yews,<br />
+The silent owls sit ranged in rows,<br />
+Like ancient idols, strangely pose,<br />
+And darting fiery eyes, they muse.<br />
+<br />
+Immovable, they sit and gaze,<br />
+Until the melancholy hour,<br />
+At which the darknesses devour<br />
+The faded sunset's slanting rays.<br />
+<br />
+Their attitude, instructs the wise,<br />
+That he&mdash;within this world&mdash;who flies<br />
+From tumult and from merriment;<br />
+<br />
+The man allured by a passing face,<br />
+For ever bears the chastisement<br />
+Of having wished to change his place.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Music" id="Music"></a>Music</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Oft Music possesses me like the seas!<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">To my planet pale,</span><br />
+'Neath a ceiling of mist, in the lofty breeze,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">I set my sail.</span><br />
+<br />
+With inflated lungs and expanded chest,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Like to a sail,</span><br />
+On the backs of the heaped-up billows I rest&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Which the shadows veil&mdash;</span><br />
+<br />
+I feel all the anguish within me arise<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Of a ship in distress;</span><br />
+The tempest, the rain, 'neath the lowering skies,<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">My body caress;</span><br />
+At times, the calm pool or the mirror clear<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Of my despair!</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Joyous_Defunct" id="The_Joyous_Defunct"></a>The Joyous Defunct</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Where snails abound&mdash;in a juicy soil,<br />
+I will dig for myself a fathomless grave,<br />
+Where at leisure mine ancient bones I can coil,<br />
+And sleep&mdash;quite forgotten&mdash;like a shark 'neath the wave.<br />
+<br />
+I hate every tomb&mdash;I abominate wills,<br />
+And rather than tears from the world to implore,<br />
+I would ask of the crows with their vampire bills<br />
+To devour every bit of my carcass impure.<br />
+<br />
+Oh worms, without eyes, without ears, black friends!<br />
+To you a defunct-one, rejoicing, descends,<br />
+Enlivened Philosophers&mdash;offspring of Dung!<br />
+<br />
+Without any qualms, o'er my wreckage spread,<br />
+And tell if some torment there still can be wrung<br />
+For this soul-less old frame that is dead 'midst the dead!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Broken_Bell" id="The_Broken_Bell"></a>The Broken Bell</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+How sweet and bitter, on a winter night,<br />
+Beside the palpitating fire to list,<br />
+As, slowly, distant memories alight,<br />
+To sounds of chimes that sing across the mist.<br />
+<br />
+Oh, happy is that bell with hearty throat,<br />
+Which neither age nor time can e'er defeat,<br />
+Which faithfully uplifts its pious note,<br />
+Like an agèd soldier on his beat.<br />
+<br />
+For me, my soul is cracked, and 'mid her cares,<br />
+Would often fill with her songs the midnight airs<br />
+And oft it chances that her feeble moan<br />
+<br />
+Is like the wounded warrior's fainting groan,<br />
+Who by a lake of blood, 'neath bodies slain,<br />
+In anguish falls, and never moves again.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Spleen" id="Spleen"></a>Spleen</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+The rainy moon of all the world is weary,<br />
+And from its urn a gloomy cold pours down,<br />
+Upon the pallid inmates of the mortuary,<br />
+And on the neighbouring outskirts of the town.<br />
+<br />
+My wasted cat, in searching for a litter,<br />
+Bestirs its mangy paws from post to post;<br />
+(A poet's soul that wanders in the gutter,<br />
+With the jaded voice of a shiv'ring ghost).<br />
+<br />
+The smoking pine-log, while the drone laments,<br />
+Accompanies the wheezy pendulum,<br />
+The while amidst a haze of dirty scents,<br />
+<br />
+&mdash;Those fatal remnants of a sick man's room&mdash;<br />
+The gallant knave of hearts and queen of spades<br />
+Relate their ancient amorous escapades.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Obsession" id="Obsession"></a>Obsession</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Great forests, you alarm me like a mighty fane;<br />
+Like organ-tones you roar, and in our hearts of stone,<br />
+Where ancient sobs vibrate, O halls of endless pain!<br />
+The answering echoes of your "De Profundis" moan.<br />
+<br />
+I hate thee, Ocean! hate thy tumults and thy throbs,<br />
+My spirit finds them in himself. This bitter glee<br />
+Of vanquished mortals, full of insults and of sobs,<br />
+I hear it in the mighteous laughter of the sea.<br />
+<br />
+O starless night! thy loveliness my soul inhales,<br />
+Without those starry rays which speak a language known,<br />
+For I desire the dark, the naked and the lone.<br />
+<br />
+But e'en those darknesses themselves to me are veils,<br />
+Where live&mdash;and, by the millions 'neath my eyelids prance,<br />
+Long, long departed Beings with familiar glance.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Magnetic_Horror" id="Magnetic_Horror"></a>Magnetic Horror</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+"Beneath this sky, so livid and strange,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tormented like thy destiny,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">What thoughts within thy spirit range</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Themselves?&mdash;O libertine reply."</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">&mdash;With vain desires, for ever torn</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Towards the uncertain, and the vast,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And yet, like Ovid&mdash;I'll not mourn&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Who from his Roman Heaven was cast.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">O heavens, turbulent as the streams,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">In you I mirror forth my pride!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Your clouds, which clad in mourning, glide,</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Are the hearses of my dreams,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And in your illusion lies the hell,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wherein my heart delights to dwell.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Lid" id="The_Lid"></a>The Lid</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Where'er he may rove, upon sea or on land,<br />
+'Neath a fiery sky or a pallid sun,<br />
+Be he Christian or one of Cythera's band,<br />
+Opulent Croesus or beggar&mdash;'tis one,<br />
+<br />
+Whether citizen, peasant or vagabond he,<br />
+Be his little brain active or dull. Everywhere,<br />
+Man feels the terror of mystery,<br />
+And looks upon high with a glance full of fear.<br />
+<br />
+The Heaven above, that oppressive wall;<br />
+A ceiling lit up in some lewd music hall,<br />
+Where the actors step forth on a blood-red soil;<br />
+<br />
+The eremite's hope, and the dread of the sot,<br />
+The Sky; that black lid of a mighty pot,<br />
+Where, vast and minute, human Races boil.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Berthas_Eyes" id="Berthas_Eyes"></a>Bertha's Eyes</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+The loveliest eyes you can scorn with your wondrous glow:<br />
+O! beautiful childish eyes there abounds in your light,<br />
+A something unspeakably tender and good as the night:<br />
+O! eyes! over me your enchanting darkness let flow.<br />
+<br />
+Large eyes of my child! O Arcana profoundly adored!<br />
+Ye resemble so closely those caves in the magical creek;<br />
+Where within the deep slumbering shade of some petrified peak,<br />
+There shines, undiscovered, the gems of a dazzling hoard.<br />
+<br />
+My child has got eyes so profound and so dark and so vast,<br />
+Like thee! oh unending Night, and thy mystical shine:<br />
+Their flames are those thoughts that with Love and with Faith combine,<br />
+And sparkle deep down in the depths so alluring or chaste.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Set_of_the_Romantic_Sun" id="The_Set_of_the_Romantic_Sun"></a>The Set of the Romantic Sun</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+How beauteous the sun as it rises supreme,<br />
+Like an explosion that greets us from above,<br />
+Oh, happy is he that can hail with love,<br />
+Its decline, more glorious far, than a dream.<br />
+<br />
+I saw flower, furrow, and brook.... I recall<br />
+How they swooned like a tremulous heart 'neath the sun,<br />
+Let us haste to the sky-line, 'tis late, let us run,<br />
+At least to catch one slanting ray ere it fall.<br />
+<br />
+But the god, who eludes me, I chase all in vain,<br />
+The night, irresistible, plants its domain,<br />
+Black mists and vague shivers of death it forbodes;<br />
+<br />
+While an odour of graves through the darkness spreads,<br />
+And on the swamp's margin, my timid foot treads<br />
+Upon slimy snails, and on unseen toads.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Meditation" id="Meditation"></a>Meditation</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Be wise, O my Woe, seek thy grievance to drown,<br />
+Thou didst call for the night, and behold it is here,<br />
+An atmosphere sombre, envelopes the town,<br />
+To some bringing peace and to others a care.<br />
+<br />
+Whilst the manifold souls of the vile multitude,<br />
+'Neath the lash of enjoyment, that merciless sway,<br />
+Go plucking remorse from the menial brood,<br />
+From them far, O my grief, hold my hand, come this way.<br />
+<br />
+Behold how they beckon, those years, long expired,<br />
+From Heaven, in faded apparel attired,<br />
+How Regret, smiling, foams on the waters like yeast;<br />
+<br />
+Its arches of slumber the dying sun spreads,<br />
+And like a long winding-sheet dragged to the East,<br />
+Oh, hearken Beloved, how the Night softly treads!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="To_a_Passer-by" id="To_a_Passer-by"></a>To a Passer-by</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Around me thundered the deafening noise of the street,<br />
+In mourning apparel, portraying majestic distress,<br />
+With queenly fingers, just lifting the hem of her dress,<br />
+A stately woman passed by with hurrying feet.<br />
+<br />
+Agile and noble, with limbs of perfect poise,<br />
+Ah, how I drank, thrilled through like a Being insane,<br />
+In her look, a dark sky, from whence springs forth the hurricane,<br />
+There lay but the sweetness that charms, and the joy that destroys.<br />
+<br />
+A flash&mdash;then the night.... O loveliness fugitive!<br />
+Whose glance has so suddenly caused me again to live,<br />
+Shall I not see you again till this life is o'er!<br />
+<br />
+Elsewhere, far away ... too late, perhaps never more,<br />
+For I know not whither you fly, nor you, where I go,<br />
+O soul that I would have loved, and <i>that</i> you know!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Illusionary_Love" id="Illusionary_Love"></a>Illusionary Love</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+When I behold thee wander by, my languorous love,<br />
+To songs of viols which throughout the dome resound,<br />
+Harmonious and stately as thy footsteps move,<br />
+Bestowing forth the languor of thy glance profound.<br />
+<br />
+When I regard thee, glowing in the gaslight rays,<br />
+Thy pallid brow embellished by a charm obscure,<br />
+Here where the evening torches light the twilight haze,<br />
+Thine eyes attracting me like those of a portraiture,<br />
+<br />
+I say&mdash;How beautiful she is! how strangely rich!<br />
+A mighty memory, royal and commanding tower,<br />
+A garland: and her heart, bruised like a ruddy peach,<br />
+Is ripe&mdash;like her body for Love's sapient power.<br />
+<br />
+Art thou, that spicy Autumn-fruit with taste supreme?<br />
+Art thou a funeral vase inviting tears of grief?<br />
+Aroma&mdash;causing one of Eastern wastes to dream;<br />
+A downy cushion, bunch of flowers or golden sheaf?<br />
+<br />
+I know that there are eyes, most melancholy ones,<br />
+Wherein no precious secret deeply hidden lies,<br />
+Resplendent shrines, devoid of relics, sacred stones,<br />
+More empty, more profound than ye yourselves, O skies?<br />
+<br />
+Yea, does thy semblance, not alone for me suffice,<br />
+To kindle senses which the cruel truth abhor?<br />
+All one to me! thy folly or thy heart of ice,<br />
+Decoy or mask, all hail! thy beauty I adore!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Mists_and_Rains" id="Mists_and_Rains"></a>Mists and Rains</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+O last of Autumn and Winter&mdash;steeped in haze,<br />
+O sleepy seasons! you I love and praise,<br />
+Because around my heart and brain you twine<br />
+A misty winding-sheet and a nebulous shrine.<br />
+<br />
+On that great plain, where frigid blasts abound,<br />
+Where through the nights, so long, the vane whirls round,<br />
+My soul, more free than in the springtime soft,<br />
+Will stretch her raven wings and soar aloft,<br />
+<br />
+Unto an heart with gloomy things replete,<br />
+On which remain the frosts of former Times,<br />
+O pallid seasons, mistress of our climes<br />
+<br />
+As your pale shadows&mdash;nothing is so sweet,<br />
+Unless it be, on a moonless night a-twain,<br />
+On some chance couch to soothe to sleep our Pain.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Wine_of_Lovers" id="The_Wine_of_Lovers"></a>The Wine of Lovers</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+To-day the Distance is superb,<br />
+Without bridle, spur or curb,<br />
+Let us mount on the back of wine<br />
+For Regions fairy and divine!<br />
+<br />
+Let's, like two angels tortured by<br />
+Some dark, delirious phantasy,<br />
+Pursue the distant mirage drawn<br />
+O'er the blue crystal of the dawn!<br />
+<br />
+And gently balanced on the wing<br />
+Of some obliging whirlwind, we<br />
+&mdash;In equal rapture revelling&mdash;<br />
+<br />
+My sister, side by side will flee,<br />
+Without repose, nor truce, where gleams<br />
+The golden Paradise of my dreams!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Condemned_Women" id="Condemned_Women"></a>Condemned Women</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Like thoughtful cattle on the yellow sands reclined,<br />
+They turn their eyes towards the horizon of the sea,<br />
+Their feet towards each other stretched, their hands entwined,<br />
+They tell of gentle yearning, frigid misery.<br />
+<br />
+A few, with heart-confiding faith of old, imbued<br />
+Amid the darkling grove, where silver streamlets flow,<br />
+Unfold to each their loves of tender infanthood,<br />
+And carve the verdant stems of the vine-kissed portico.<br />
+<br />
+And others like unto nuns with footsteps slow and grave,<br />
+Ascend the hallowed rocks of ancient mystic lore,<br />
+Where long ago&mdash;St. Anthony, like a surging wave,<br />
+The naked purpled breasts of his temptation saw.<br />
+<br />
+And still some more, that 'neath the shimmering masses stroll,<br />
+Among the silent chasm of some pagan caves,<br />
+To soothe their burning fevers unto thee they call<br />
+O Bacchus! who all ancient wounds and sorrow laves.<br />
+<br />
+And others again, whose necks in scapulars delight,<br />
+Who hide a whip beneath their garments secretly,<br />
+Commingling, in the sombre wood and lonesome night,<br />
+The foam of torments and of tears with ecstasy.<br />
+<br />
+O virgins, demons, monsters, and O martyred brood!<br />
+Great souls that mock Reality with remorseless sneers,<br />
+O saints and satyrs, searchers for infinitude!<br />
+At times so full of shouts, at times so full of tears!<br />
+<br />
+You, to whom within your hell my spirit flies,<br />
+Poor sisters&mdash;yea, I love you as I pity you,<br />
+For your unsatiated thirsts and anguished sighs,<br />
+And for the vials of love within your hearts so true.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Death_of_the_Lovers" id="The_Death_of_the_Lovers"></a>The Death of the Lovers</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+We will have beds which exhale odours soft,<br />
+We will have divans profound as the tomb,<br />
+And delicate plants on the ledges aloft,<br />
+Which under the bluest of skies for us bloom.<br />
+<br />
+Exhausting our hearts to their last desires,<br />
+They both shall be like unto two glowing coals,<br />
+Reflecting the twofold light of their fires<br />
+Across the twin mirrors of our two souls.<br />
+<br />
+One evening of mystical azure skies,<br />
+We'll exchange but one single lightning flash,<br />
+Just like a long sob&mdash;replete with good byes.<br />
+<br />
+And later an angel shall joyously pass<br />
+Through the half-open doors, to replenish and wash<br />
+The torches expired, and the tarnished glass.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Death_of_the_Poor" id="The_Death_of_the_Poor"></a>The Death of the Poor</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+It is Death that consoles&mdash;yea, and causes our lives;<br />
+'Tis the goal of this Life&mdash;and of Hope the sole ray,<br />
+Which like a strong potion enlivens and gives<br />
+Us the strength to plod on to the end of the day.<br />
+<br />
+And all through the tempest, the frost and the snows,<br />
+'Tis the shimmering light on our black sky-line;<br />
+'Tis the famous inn which the guide-book shows,<br />
+Whereat one can eat, and sleep, and recline;<br />
+<br />
+'Tis an angel that holds in his magic hands<br />
+The sleep, which ecstatic dream commands,<br />
+Who remakes up the beds of the naked and poor;<br />
+<br />
+'Tis the fame of the gods, 'tis the granary blest,<br />
+'Tis the purse of the poor, and his birth-place of rest,<br />
+To the unknown Heavens, 'tis the wide-open door.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 95%;" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 36098 ***</div>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #36098 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36098)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Flowers of Evil, by Charles Baudelaire
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Flowers of Evil
+
+Author: Charles Baudelaire
+
+Translator: Cyril Scott
+
+Release Date: May 13, 2011 [EBook #36098]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWERS OF EVIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrea Ball and Marc D'Hooghe at
+http://www.freeliterature.org (From images generously made
+available by the Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FLOWERS OF EVIL
+
+by
+
+CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
+
+
+TRANSLATED INTO
+
+ENGLISH  VERSE
+
+
+BY
+
+CYRIL SCOTT
+
+
+LONDON
+
+ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET
+
+M CM IX
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATED TO ARTHUR SYMONS
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+  Benediction
+  Echoes
+  The Sick Muse
+  The Venal Muse
+  The Evil Monk
+  The Enemy
+  Ill-Luck
+  Interior Life
+  Man and the Sea
+  Beauty
+  The Ideal
+  The Giantess
+  Hymn to Beauty
+  Exotic Perfume
+  La Chevelure
+  Sonnet XXVIII
+  Posthumous Remorse
+  The Balcony
+  The Possessed One
+  Semper Eadem
+  All Entire
+  Sonnet XLIII
+  The Living Torch
+  The Spiritual Dawn
+  Evening Harmony
+  Overcast Sky
+  Invitation to a Journey
+  "Causerie"
+  Autumn Song
+  Sisina
+  To a Creolean Lady
+  Moesta et Errabunda
+  The Ghost
+  Autumn Song
+  Sadness of the Moon-Goddess
+  Cats
+  Owls
+  Music
+  The Joyous Defunct
+  The Broken Bell
+  Spleen
+  Obsession
+  Magnetic Horror
+  The Lid
+  Bertha's Eyes
+  The Set of the Romantic Sun
+  Meditation
+  To a Passer-by
+  Illusionary Love
+  Mists and Rains
+  The Wine of Lovers
+  Condemned Women
+  The Death of the Lovers
+  The Death of the Poor
+
+
+
+
+   Benediction
+
+
+    When by the changeless Power of a Supreme Decree
+    The poet issues forth upon this sorry sphere,
+    His mother, horrified, and full of blasphemy,
+    Uplifts her voice to God, who takes compassion on her.
+
+   "Ah, why did I not bear a serpent's nest entire,
+    Instead of bringing forth this hideous Child of Doom!
+    Oh cursèd be that transient night of vain desire
+    When I conceived my expiation in my womb!"
+
+   "Yet since among all women thou hast chosen me
+    To be the degradation of my jaded mate,
+    And since I cannot like a love-leaf wantonly
+    Consign this stunted monster to the glowing grate,"
+
+   "I'll cause thine overwhelming hatred to rebound
+    Upon the cursèd tool of thy most wicked spite.
+    Forsooth, the branches of this wretched tree I'll wound
+    And rob its pestilential blossoms of their might!"
+
+    So thus, she giveth vent unto her foaming ire,
+    And knowing not the changeless statutes of all times,
+    Herself, amid the flames of hell, prepares the pyre;
+    The consecrated penance of maternal crimes.
+
+    Yet 'neath th' invisible shelter of an Angel's wing
+    This sunlight-loving infant disinherited,
+    Exhales from all he eats and drinks, and everything
+    The ever sweet ambrosia and the nectar red.
+
+    He trifles with the winds and with the clouds that glide,
+    About the way unto the Cross, he loves to sing,
+    The spirit on his pilgrimage; that faithful guide,
+    Oft weeps to see him joyful like a bird of Spring.
+
+    All those that he would cherish shrink from him with fear,
+    And some that waxen bold by his tranquility,
+    Endeavour hard some grievance from his heart to tear,
+    And make on him the trial of their ferocity.
+
+    Within the bread and wine outspread for his repast
+    To mingle dust and dirty spittle they essay,
+    And everything he touches, forth they slyly cast,
+    Or scourge themselves, if e'er their feet betrod his way.
+
+    His wife goes round proclaiming in the crowded quads--
+   "Since he can find my body beauteous to behold,
+    Why not perform the office of those ancient gods
+    And like unto them, redeck myself with shining gold?"
+
+   "I'll bathe myself with incense, spikenard and myrrh,
+    With genuflexions, delicate viandes and wine,
+    To see, in jest, if from a heart, that loves me dear,
+    I cannot filch away the hommages divine."
+
+   "And when of these impious jokes at length I tire,
+    My frail but mighty hands, around his breast entwined,
+    With nails, like harpies' nails, shall cunningly conspire
+    The hidden path unto his feeble heart to find."
+
+   "And like a youngling bird that trembles in its nest,
+    I'll pluck his heart right out; within its own blood drowned,
+    And finally to satiate my favourite beast,
+    I'll throw it with intense disdain upon the ground!"
+
+    Towards the Heavens where he sees the sacred grail
+    The poet calmly stretches forth his pious arms,
+    Whereon the lightenings from his lucid spirit veil
+    The sight of the infuriated mob that swarms.
+
+   "Oh blest be thou, Almighty who bestowest pain,
+    Like some divine redress for our infirmities,
+    And like the most refreshing and the purest rain,
+    To sanctify the strong, for saintly ecstasies."
+
+   "I know that for the poet thou wilt grant a chair,
+    Among the Sainted Legion and the Blissful ones,
+    That of the endless feast thou wilt accord his share
+    To him, of Virtues, Dominations and of Thrones."
+
+   "I know, that Sorrow is that nobleness alone,
+    Which never may corrupted be by hell nor curse,
+    I know, in order to enwreathe my mystic crown
+    I must inspire the ages and the universe."
+
+   "And yet the buried jewels of Palmyra old,
+    The undiscovered metals and the pearly sea
+    Of gems, that unto me you show could never hold
+    Beside this diadem of blinding brilliancy."
+
+   "For it shall be engendered from the purest fire
+    Of rays primeval, from the holy hearth amassed,
+    Of which the eyes of Mortals, in their sheen entire,
+    Are but the tarnished mirrors, sad and overcast!"
+
+
+
+
+   Echoes
+
+
+   In Nature's temple, living columns rise,
+   Which oftentimes give tongue to words subdued,
+   And Man traverses this symbolic wood,
+   Which looks at him with half familiar eyes,
+
+   Like lingering echoes, which afar confound
+   Themselves in deep and sombre unity,
+   As vast as Night, and like transplendency,
+   The scents and colours to each other respond.
+
+   And scents there are, like infant's flesh as chaste,
+   As sweet as oboes, and as meadows fair,
+   And others, proud, corrupted, rich and vast,
+
+   Which have the expansion of infinity,
+   Like amber, musk and frankincense and myrrh,
+   That sing the soul's and senses' ecstasy.
+
+
+
+
+   The Sick Muse
+
+
+   Alas--my poor Muse--what aileth thee now?
+   Thine eyes are bedimmed with the visions of Night,
+   And silent and cold--I perceive on thy brow
+   In their turns--Despair and Madness alight.
+
+   A succubus green, or a hobgoblin red,
+   Has it poured o'er thee Horror and Love from its urn?
+   Or the Nightmare with masterful bearing hath led
+   Thee to drown in the depths of some magic Minturne?
+
+   I wish, as the health-giving fragrance I cull,
+   That thy breast with strong thoughts could for ever be full,
+   And that rhymthmic'ly flowing--thy Christian blood
+
+   Could resemble the olden-time metrical-flood,
+   Where each in his turn reigned the father of Rhymes
+   Phoebus--and Pan, lord of Harvest-times.
+
+
+
+
+   The Venal Muse
+
+
+   Oh Muse of my heart--so fond of palaces old,
+   Wilt have--when New Year speeds its wintry blast,
+   Amid those tedious nights, with snow o'ercast,
+   A log to warm thy feet, benumbed with cold?
+
+   Wilt thou thy marbled shoulders then revive
+   With nightly rays that through thy shutters peep?
+   And--void thy purse and void thy palace--reap
+   A golden hoard within some azure hive?
+
+   Thou must, to earn thy daily bread, each night,
+   Suspend the censer like an acolyte,
+   Te-Deums sing, with sanctimonious ease,
+
+   Or as a famished mountebank, with jokes obscene
+   Essay to lull the vulgar rabble's spleen;
+   Thy laughter soaked in tears which no one sees.
+
+
+
+
+   The Evil Monk
+
+
+   The cloisters old, expounded on their walls
+   With paintings, the Beatic Verity,
+   The which--adorning their religious halls,
+   Enriched the frigidness of their Austerity.
+
+   In days when Christian seeds bloomed o'er the land,
+   Full many a noble monk unknown to-day,
+   Upon the field of tombs would take his stand,
+   Exalting Death in rude and simple way.
+
+   My soul is a tomb where--bad monk that I be--
+   I dwell and search its depths from all eternity,
+   And nought bedecks the walls of the odious spot.
+
+   Oh sluggard monk! when shall I glean aright
+   From the living spectacle of my bitter lot,
+   To mold my handywork and mine eyes' Delight?
+
+
+
+
+   The Enemy
+
+
+   My childhood was nought but a ravaging storm,
+   Enlivened at times by a brilliant sun;
+   The rain and the winds wrought such havoc and harm
+   That of buds on my plot there remains hardly one.
+
+   Behold now the Fall of ideas I have reached,
+   And the shovel and rake one must therefore resume,
+   In collecting the turf, inundated and breached,
+   Where the waters dug trenches as deep as a tomb.
+
+   And yet these new blossoms, for which I craved,
+   Will they find in this earth--like a shore that is laved--
+   The mystical fuel which vigour imparts?
+
+   Oh misery!--Time devours our lives,
+   And the enemy black, which consumeth our hearts
+   On the blood of our bodies, increases and thrives!
+
+
+
+
+   Ill Luck
+
+
+   This heavy burden to uplift,
+   O Sysiphus, thy pluck is required!
+   And even though the heart aspired,
+   Art is long and Time is swift.
+
+   Afar from sepulchres renowned,
+   To a graveyard, quite apart,
+   Like a broken drum, my heart,
+   Beats the funeral marches' sound.
+
+   Many a buried jewel sleeps
+   In the long-forgotten deeps,
+   Far from mattock and from sound;
+
+   Many a flower wafts aloft
+   Its perfumes, like a secret soft,
+   Within the solitudes, profound.
+
+
+
+
+   Interior Life
+
+
+   A long while I dwelt beneath vast porticoes,
+   While the ocean-suns bathed with a thousand fires,
+   And which with their great and majestic spires,
+   At eventide looked like basaltic grottoes.
+
+   The billows, in rolling depictured the skies,
+   And mingled, in solemn and mystical strain,
+   The all-mighteous chords of their luscious refrain
+   With the sun-set's colours reflexed in mine eyes.
+
+   It is there that I lived in exalted calm,
+   In the midst of the azure, the splendour, the waves,
+   While pregnant with perfumes, naked slaves
+
+   Refreshed my forehead with branches of palm,
+   Whose gentle and only care was to know
+   The secret that caused me to languish so.
+
+
+
+
+   Man and the Sea
+
+
+   Free man! the sea is to thee ever dear!
+   The sea is thy mirror, thou regardest thy soul
+   In its mighteous waves that unendingly roll,
+   And thy spirit is yet not a chasm less drear.
+
+   Thou delight'st to plunge deep in thine image down;
+   Thou tak'st it with eyes and with arms in embrace,
+   And at times thine own inward voice would'st efface
+   With the sound of its savage ungovernable moan.
+
+   You are both of you, sombre, secretive and deep:
+   Oh mortal, thy depths are foraye unexplored,
+   Oh sea--no one knoweth thy dazzling hoard,
+   You both are so jealous your secrets to keep!
+
+   And endless ages have wandered by,
+   Yet still without pity or mercy you fight,
+   So mighty in plunder and death your delight:
+   Oh wrestlers! so constant in enmity!
+
+
+
+
+   Beauty
+
+
+   I am lovely, O mortals, like a dream of stone,
+   And my bosom, where each one gets bruised in turn,
+   To inspire the love of a poet is prone,
+   Like matter eternally silent and stern.
+
+   As an unfathomed sphinx, enthroned by the Nile,
+   My heart a swan's whiteness with granite combines,
+   And I hate every movement, displacing the lines,
+   And never I weep and never I smile.
+
+   The poets in front of mine attitudes fine
+   (Which the proudest of monuments seem to implant),
+   To studies profound all their moments assign,
+
+   For I have all these docile swains to enchant--
+   Two mirrors, which Beauty in all things ignite:
+   Mine eyes, my large eyes, of eternal Light!
+
+
+
+
+   The Ideal
+
+
+   It could ne'er be those beauties of ivory vignettes;
+   The varied display of a worthless age,
+   Nor puppet-like figures with castonets,
+   That ever an heart like mine could engage.
+
+   I leave to Gavarni, that poet of chlorosis,
+   His hospital-beauties in troups that whirl,
+   For I cannot discover amid his pale roses
+   A flower to resemble my scarlet ideal.
+
+   Since, what for this fathomless heart I require
+   Is--Lady Macbeth you! in crime so dire;
+   --An Æschylus dream transposed from the South--
+
+   Or thee, oh great "Night" of Michael-Angelo born,
+   Who so calmly thy limbs in strange posture hath drawn,
+   Whose allurements are framed for a Titan's mouth.
+
+
+
+
+   The Giantess
+
+
+   I should have loved--erewhile when Heaven conceived
+   Each day, some child abnormal and obscene,
+   Beside a maiden giantess to have lived,
+   Like a luxurious cat at the feet of a queen;
+
+   To see her body flowering with her soul,
+   And grow, unchained, in awe-inspiring art,
+   Within the mists across her eyes that stole
+   To divine the fires entombed within her heart.
+
+   And oft to scramble o'er her mighty limbs,
+   And climb the slopes of her enormous knees,
+   Or in summer when the scorching sunlight streams
+
+   Across the country, to recline at ease,
+   And slumber in the shadow of her breast
+   Like an hamlet 'neath the mountain-crest.
+
+
+
+
+   Hymn to Beauty
+
+
+   O Beauty! dost thou generate from Heaven or from Hell?
+   Within thy glance, so diabolic and divine,
+   Confusedly both wickedness and goodness dwell,
+   And hence one might compare thee unto sparkling wine.
+
+   Thy look containeth both the dawn and sunset stars,
+   Thy perfumes, as upon a sultry night exhale,
+   Thy kiss a philter, and thy mouth a Grecian vase,
+   That renders heroes cowardly and infants hale.
+
+   Yea, art thou from the planets, or the fiery womb?
+   The demon follows in thy train, with magic fraught,
+   Thou scatter'st seeds haphazardly of joy and doom,
+   Thou govern'st everything, but answer'st unto nought.
+
+   O Loveliness! thou spurnest corpses with delight,
+   Among thy jewels, Horror hath such charms for thee,
+   And Murder 'mid thy mostly cherished trinklets bright,
+   Upon thy massive bosom dances amorously.
+
+   The blinded, fluttering moth towards the candle flies,
+   Then frizzles, falls, and falters--"Blessings unto thee"--
+   The panting swain that o'er his beauteous mistress sighs,
+   Seems like the Sick, that stroke their gravestones lovingly.
+
+   What matter, if thou comest from the Heavens or Hell,
+   O Beauty, frightful ghoul, ingenuous and obscure!
+   So long thine eyes, thy smile, to me the way can tell
+   Towards that Infinite I love, but never saw.
+
+   From God or Satan? Angel, Mermaid, Proserpine?
+   What matter if thou makest--blithe, voluptuous sprite--
+   With rhythms, perfumes, visions--O mine only queen!--
+   The universe less hideous and the hours less trite.
+
+
+
+
+   Exotic Perfume
+
+
+   When, with closed eyes, on a hot afternoon,
+   The scent of thine ardent breast I inhale,
+   Celestial vistas my spirit assail;
+   Caressed by the flames of an endless sun.
+
+   A langorous island, where Nature abounds
+   With exotic trees and luscious fruit;
+   And with men whose bodies are slim and astute,
+   And with women whose frankness delights and astounds.
+
+   By thy perfume enticed to this region remote,
+   A port I see, laden with mast and with boat,
+   Still wearied and torn by the distant brine;
+
+   While the tamarisk-odours that dreamily throng
+   The air, round my slumberous senses intwine,
+   And mix, in my soul, with the mariners' song.
+
+
+
+
+   La Chevelure
+
+
+   O fleece, that foams down unto the shoulders bare!
+   O curls, O scents which lovely languidness exhale!
+   Delight! to fill this alcove's sombre atmosphere
+   With memories, sleeping deep within this tress of hair,
+   I'll wave it in the evening breezes like a veil!
+
+   The shores of Africa, and Asia's burning skies,
+   A world forgotten, distant, nearly dead and spent,
+   Within thy depths, O aromatic forest! lies.
+   And like to spirits floating unto melodies,
+   Mine own, Belovèd! glides within thy sacred scent.
+
+   There I will hasten, where the trees and humankind
+   With languor lull beside the hot and silent sea;
+   Strong tresses bear me, be to me the waves and wind!
+   Within thy fragrance lies a dazzling dream confined
+   Of sails and masts and flames--O lake of ebony!
+
+   A loudly echoing harbour, where my soul may hold
+   To quaff, the silver cup of colours, scents and sounds,
+   Wherein the vessels glide upon a sea of gold,
+   And stretch their mighty arms, the glory to enfold
+   Of virgin skies, where never-ending heat abounds.
+
+   I'll plunge my brow, enamoured with voluptuousness
+   Within this darkling ocean of infinitude,
+   Until my subtle spirit, which thy waves caress,
+   Shall find you once again, O fertile weariness;
+   Unending lullabye of perfumed lassitude!
+
+   Ye tresses blue--recess of strange and sombre shades,
+   Ye make the azure of the starry Realm immense;
+   Upon the downy beeches, by your curls' cascades,
+   Among your mingling fragrances, my spirit wades
+   To cull the musk and cocoa-nut and lotus scents.
+
+   Long--foraye--my hand, within thy heavy mane,
+   Shall scatter rubies, pearls, sapphires eternally,
+   And thus my soul's desire for thee shall never wane;
+   For art not thou the oasis where I dream and drain
+   With draughts profound, the golden wine of memory?
+
+
+
+
+   Sonnet XXVIII
+
+
+   With pearly robes that wave within the wind,
+   Even when she walks, she seems to dance,
+   Like swaying serpents round those wands entwined
+   Which fakirs ware in rhythmic elegance.
+
+   So like the desert's Blue, and the sands remote,
+   Both, deaf to mortal suffering and to strife,
+   Or like the sea-weeds 'neath the waves that float,
+   Indifferently she moulds her budding life.
+
+   Her polished eyes are made of minerals bright,
+   And in her mien, symbolical and cold,
+   Wherein an angel mingles with a sphinx of old,
+
+   Where all is gold, and steel, and gems, and light,
+   There shines, just like a useless star eternally,
+   The sterile woman's frigid majesty.
+
+
+
+
+   Posthumous Remorse
+
+
+   Ah, when thou shalt slumber, my darkling love,
+   Beneath a black marble-made statuette,
+   And when thou'lt have nought for thy house or alcove,
+   But a cavernous den and a damp oubliette.
+
+   When the tomb-stone, oppressing thy timorous breast,
+   And thy hips drooping sweetly with listless decay,
+   The pulse and desires of mine heart shall arrest,
+   And thy feet from pursuing their adventurous way,
+
+   Then the grave, that dark friend of my limitless dreams
+   (For the grave ever readeth the poet aright),
+   Amid those long nights, which no slumber redeems
+
+   'Twill query--"What use to thee, incomplete spright
+   That thou ne'er hast unfathomed the tears of the dead"?--
+   Then the worms will gnaw deep at thy body, like Dread.
+
+
+
+
+   The Balcony
+
+
+   Oh, Mother of Memories! Mistress of Mistresses!
+   Oh, thou all my pleasures, oh, thou all my prayers!
+   Can'st thou remember those luscious caresses,
+   The charm of the hearth and the sweet evening airs?
+   Oh, Mother, of Memories, Mistress of Mistresses!
+
+   Those evenings illumed by the glow of the coal,
+   And those roseate nights with their vaporous wings,
+   How calm was thy breast and how good was thy soul,
+   'Twas then we uttered imperishable things,
+   Those evenings illumed by the glow of the coal.
+
+   How lovely the suns on those hot, autumn nights!
+   How vast were the heavens! and the heart how hale!
+   As I leaned towards you--oh, my Queen of Delights,
+   The scent of thy blood I seemed to inhale.
+   How lovely the sun on those hot, autumn nights!
+
+   The shadows of night-time grew dense like a pall,
+   And deep through the darkness thine eyes I divined,
+   And I drank of thy breath--oh sweetness, oh gall,
+   And thy feet in my brotherly hands reclined,
+   The shadows of Night-time grew dense like a pall.
+
+   I know how to call forth those moments so dear,
+   And to live my Past--laid on thy knees--once more,
+   For where should I seek for thy beauties but here
+   In thy langorous heart and thy body so pure?
+   I know how to call forth those moments so dear.
+
+   Those perfumes, those infinite kisses and sighs,
+   Are they born in some gulf to our plummets denied?
+   Like rejuvenate suns that mount up to the skies,
+   That first have been cleansed in the depths of the tide;
+   Oh, perfumes! oh, infinite kisses and sighs!
+
+
+
+
+   The Possessed One
+
+
+   The sun is enveloped in crape! like it,
+   O Moon of my Life! wrap thyself up in shade;
+   At will, smoke or slumber, be silent, be staid,
+   And dive deep down in Dispassion's dark pit.
+
+   I cherish thee thus! But if 'tis thy mood,
+   Like a star that from out its penumbra appears,
+   To float in the regions where madness careers,
+   Fair dagger! burst forth from thy sheath! 'tis good.
+
+   Yea, light up thine eyes at the Fire of Renown!
+   Or kindle desire by the looks of some clown!
+   Thine All is my joy, whether dull or aflame!
+
+   Just be what thou wilt, black night, dawn divine,
+   There is not a nerve in my trembling frame
+   But cries, "I adore thee, Beelzebub mine!"
+
+
+
+
+   Semper Eadem
+
+
+   "From whence it comes, you ask, this gloom acute,
+   Like waves that o'er the rocky headland fall?"
+   --When once our hearts have gathered in their fruit,
+   To live is a curse! a secret known to all,
+
+   A grief, quite simple, nought mysterious,
+   And like your joy--for all, both loud and shrill,
+   Nay cease to clamour, be not e'er so curious!
+   And yet although your voice is sweet, be still!
+
+   Be still, O soul, with rapture ever rife!
+   O mouth, with the childish smile! Far more than Life,
+   The subtle bonds of Death around us twine.
+
+   Let--let my heart, the wine of falsehood drink,
+   And dream-like, deep within your fair eyes sink,
+   And in the shade of thy lashes long recline!
+
+
+
+
+   All Entire
+
+
+    The Demon, in my lofty vault,
+    This morning came to visit me,
+    And striving me to find at fault,
+    He said, "Fain would I know of thee;
+
+   "Among the many beauteous things,
+    --All which _her_ subtle grace proclaim--
+    Among the dark and rosy things,
+    Which go to make her charming frame,
+
+   "Which is the sweetest unto thee"?
+    My soul! to Him thou didst retort--
+   "Since all with her is destiny,
+    Of preference there can be nought.
+
+    When all transports me with delight,
+    If aught deludes I can not know,
+    She either lulls one like the Night,
+    Or dazzles like the Morning-glow.
+
+    That harmony is too divine,
+    Which governs all her body fair,
+    For powerless mortals to define
+    In notes the many concords there.
+
+    O mystic metamorphosis
+    Of all my senses blent in one!
+    Her voice a beauteous perfume is,
+    Her breath makes music, chaste and wan.
+
+
+
+
+   Sonnet XLIII
+
+
+   What sayest thou, to-night, poor soul so drear,
+   What sayest--heart erewhile engulfed in gloom,
+   To the very lovely, very chaste, and very dear,
+   Whose god-like look hath made thee to re-bloom?
+
+   To her, with pride we chant an echoing Hymn,
+   For nought can touch the sweetness of her sway;
+   Her flesh ethereal as the seraphim,
+   Her eyes with robe of light our souls array.
+
+   And be it in the night, or solitude,
+   Among the streets or 'mid the multitude,
+   Her shadow, torch-like, dances in the air,
+
+   And murmurs, "I, the Beautiful proclaim--
+   That for my sake, alone ye love the Fair;
+   I am the Guardian Angel, Muse and Dame!"
+
+
+
+
+   The Living Torch
+
+
+   They stand before me now, those eyes that shine,
+   No doubt inspired by an Angel wise;
+   They stand, those God-like brothers that are mine,
+   And pour their diamond fires in mine eyes.
+
+   From all transgressions, from all snares, they save,
+   Towards the Path of Joy they guide my ways;
+   They are my servants, and I am their slave;
+   And all my soul, this living torch obeys.
+
+   Ye charming Eyes--ye have those mystic beams,
+   Of candles, burning in full day; the sun
+   Awakes, yet kills not their fantastic gleams:
+
+   Ye sing the Awak'ning, they the dark oblivion;
+   The Awak'ning of my spirit ye proclaim,
+   O stars--no sun can ever kill your flame!
+
+
+
+
+   The Spiritual Dawn
+
+
+   When the morning white and rosy breaks,
+   With the gnawing Ideal, upon the debauchee,
+   By the power of a strange decree,
+   Within the sotted beast an Angel wakes.
+
+   The mental Heaven's inaccessible blue,
+   For wearied mortals that still dream and mourn,
+   Expands and sinks; towards the chasm drawn.
+   Thus, cherished goddess, Being pure and true--
+
+   Upon the rests of foolish orgy-nights
+   Thine image, more sublime, more pink, more clear,
+   Before my staring eyes is ever there.
+
+   The sun has darkened all the candle lights;
+   And thus thy spectre like the immortal sun,
+   Is ever victorious--thou resplendent one!
+
+
+
+
+   Evening Harmony
+
+
+   The hour approacheth, when, as their stems incline,
+   The flowers evaporate like an incense urn,
+   And sounds and scents in the vesper breezes turn;
+   A melancholy waltz--and a drowsiness divine.
+
+   The flowers evaporate like an incense urn,
+   The viol vibrates like the wailing of souls that repine.
+   A melancholy waltz--and a drowsiness divine,
+   The skies like a mosque are beautiful and stern.
+
+   The viol vibrates like the wailing of souls that repine;
+   Sweet souls that shrink from chaos vast and etern,
+   The skies like a mosque are beautiful and stern,
+   The sunset drowns within its blood-red brine.
+
+   Sweet souls that shrink from chaos vast and etern,
+   Essay the wreaths of their faded Past to entwine,
+   The sunset drowns within its blood-red brine,
+   Thy thought within me glows like an incense urn.
+
+
+
+
+   Overcast Sky
+
+
+   Meseemeth thy glance, soft enshrouded with dew,
+   Thy mysterious eyes (are they grey, green or blue?),
+   Alternately cruel, and tender, and shy,
+   Reflect both the languor and calm of the sky.
+
+   Thou recallest those white days--with shadows caressed,
+   Engendering tears from th' enraptured breast,
+   When racked by an anguish unfathomed that weeps,
+   The nerves, too awake, jibe the spirit that sleeps.
+
+   At times--thou art like those horizons divine,
+   Where the suns of the nebulous seasons decline;
+   How resplendent art thou--O pasturage vast,
+   Illumed by the beams of a sky overcast!
+
+   O! dangerous dame--oh seductive clime!
+   As well, will I love both thy snow and thy rime,
+   And shall I know how from the frosts to entice
+   Delights that are keener than iron and ice?
+
+
+
+
+   Invitation to a Journey
+
+
+       My sister, my dear
+       Consider how fair,
+   Together to live it would be!
+       Down yonder to fly
+       To love, till we die,
+   In the land which resembles thee.
+       Those suns that rise
+       'Neath erratic skies,
+   --No charm could be like unto theirs--
+       So strange and divine,
+       Like those eyes of thine
+   Which glow in the midst of their tears.
+
+   There, all is order and loveliness,
+   Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.
+
+       The tables and chairs,
+       Polished bright by the years,
+   Would decorate sweetly our rooms,
+       And the rarest of flowers
+       Would twine round our bowers
+   And mingle their amber perfumes:
+       The ceilings arrayed,
+       And the mirrors inlaid,
+   This Eastern splendour among,
+       Would furtively steal
+       O'er our souls, and appeal
+   With its tranquillous native tongue.
+
+   There, all is order and loveliness,
+   Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.
+
+       In the harbours, peep,
+       At the vessels asleep
+   (Their humour is always to roam),
+       Yet it is but to grant
+       Thy smallest want
+   From the ends of the earth that they come,
+       The sunsets beam
+       Upon meadow and stream,
+   And upon the city entire
+       'Neath a violet crest,
+       The world sinks to rest,
+   Illumed by a golden fire.
+
+   There, all is order and loveliness,
+   Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.
+
+
+
+
+   "Causerie"
+
+   You are a roseate autumn-sky, that glows!
+   Yet sadness rises in me like the flood,
+   And leaves in ebbing on my lips morose,
+   The poignant memory of its bitter mind.
+
+   In vain your hands my swooning breast embrace,
+   Oh, friend! alone remains the plundered spot,
+   Where woman's biting grip has left its trace:
+   My heart, the beasts devoured--seek it not!
+
+   My heart is a palace pillaged by the herd;
+   They kill and take each other by the throat!
+   A perfume glides around your bosom bared--
+
+   O loveliness, thou scourge of souls--devote
+   Thine eyes of fire--luminous-like feasts,
+   To burn these rags--rejected by the beasts!
+
+
+
+
+   Autumn Song
+
+
+   I
+
+   Shortly we will plunge within the frigid gloom,
+   Farewell swift summer brightness; all too short--
+   I hear already sounding with a death-like boom
+   The wood that falls upon the pavement of the court.
+
+   The whole of winter enters in my Being--pain,
+   Hate, honor, labour hard and forced--and dread,
+   And like the northern sun upon its polar plane
+   My heart will soon be but a stone, iced and red.
+
+   I listen trembling unto every log that falls,
+   The scaffold, which they build, has not a duller sound,
+   My spirits waver, like the trembling tower walls
+   that shake--with every echoing blow the builders pound.
+
+   Meeseemeth--as to these monotonous blows I sway,
+   They nail for one a coffin lid, or sound a knell--
+   For whom? Autumn now--and summer yesterday!
+   This strange mysterious noise betokens a farewell.
+
+
+   II
+
+   I love within your oblong eyes the verdant rays,
+   My sweet! but bitter everything to-day meseems:
+   And nought--your love, the boudoir, nor the flickering blaze,
+   Can replace the sun that o'er the screen streams.
+
+   And yet bemother and caress me, tender heart!
+   Even me the thankless and the worthless one;
+   Beloved or sister--unto me the sweets impart
+   Of a glorious autumn or a sinking sun.
+
+   Ephemeral task! the beckoning the beckoning empty tomb is set!
+   Oh grant me--as upon your knees my head I lay,
+   (Because the white and torrid summer I regret),
+   To taste the parted season's mild and amber ray.
+
+
+
+
+   Sisina
+
+
+   Imagine Diana in gorgeous array,
+   How into the forests and thickets she flies,
+   With her hair in the breezes, and flushed for the fray,
+   How the very best riders she proudly defies.
+
+   Have you seen Théroigne, of the blood-thirsty heart,
+   As an unshod herd to attack he bestirs,
+   With cheeks all inflamed, playing up to his part,
+   As he goes, sword in hand, up the royal stairs?
+
+   And so is Sisina--yet this warrior sweet,
+   Has a soul with compassion and kindness replete,
+   Inspired by drums and by powder, her sway
+
+   Knows how to concede to the supplicants' prayers,
+   And her bosom, laid waste by the flames, has alway,
+   For those that are worthy, a fountain of tears.
+
+
+
+
+   To a Creolean Lady
+
+
+   In a country perfumed with the sun's embrace,
+   I knew 'neath a dais of purpled palms,
+   And branches where idleness weeps o'er one's face,
+   A Creolean lady of unknown charms.
+
+   Her tint, pale and warm--this bewitching bride,
+   Displays a nobly nurtured mien,
+   Courageous and grand like a huntsman, her stride;
+   A tranquil smile and eyes serene.
+
+   If, madam, you'd go to the true land of gain,
+   By the banks of the verdant Loire or the Seine,
+   How worthy to garnish some pile of renown.
+
+   You'd awake in the calm of some shadowy nest,
+   A thousand songs in the poet's breast,
+   That your eyes would inspire far more than your brown.
+
+
+
+
+   Moesta et Errabunda
+
+
+   Oh, Agatha, tell! does thy heart not at times fly away?
+   Far from the city impure and the lowering sea,
+   To another ocean that blinds with its dazzling array,
+   So blue and so clear and profound, like virginity?
+   Oh, Agatha, tell! does thy heart not at times fly away?
+
+   The sea, the vast ocean our travail and trouble consoles!
+   What demon hath gifted the sea with a voice from on high,
+   To sing us (attuned to an Æolus-organ that rolls
+   Forth a grumbling burden) a lenitive lullabye?
+   The sea, the vast ocean our travail and trouble consoles!
+
+   Oh, carry me, waggons, oh, sailing-ships, help me depart!
+   Far, far, here the dust is quite wet with our showering tears,
+   Oh, say! it is true that Agatha's desolate heart,
+   Proclaimeth, "Away from remorse, and from crimes, and from cares,"
+   Oh, carry me, waggons, oh, sailing ships, help me depart!
+
+   How distant you seem to be, perfumed Elysian fields!
+   Wherein there is nothing but sunshine and love and glee;
+   Where all that one loves is so worthy, and lovingly yields,
+   And our hearts float about in the purest of ecstasy,
+   How distant you seem to be, perfumed Elysian fields!
+
+   But the green paradise of those transient infantile loves,
+   The strolls, and the songs, and the kisses, and bunches of flowers,
+   The viols vibrating beyond, in the mountainous groves,
+   With the chalice of wine and the evening, entwined, in the bowers,
+   But the green paradise of those transient infantile loves.
+
+   That innocent heaven o'erflowing with furtive delight,
+   Than China or India, is it still further away?
+   Or, could one with pityful prayers bring it back to our sight?
+   Or yet with a silvery voice o'er the ages convey
+   That innocent heaven o'erflowing with furtive delight!
+
+
+
+
+   The Ghost
+
+
+   Just like an angel with evil eye,
+   I shall return to thee silently,
+   Upon thy bower I'll alight,
+   With falling shadows of the night.
+
+   With thee, my brownie, I'll commune,
+   And give thee kisses cold as the moon,
+   And with a serpent's moist embrace,
+   I'll crawl around thy resting-place.
+
+   And when the livid morning falls,
+   Thou'lt find alone the empty walls,
+   And till the evening, cold 'twill be.
+
+   As others with their tenderness,
+   Upon thy life and youthfulness,
+   I'll reign alone with dread o'er thee.
+
+
+
+
+   Autumn Song
+
+
+   They ask me--thy crystalline eyes, so acute,
+   "Odd lover--why am I to thee so dear?"
+   --Be sweet and keep silent, my heart, which is sear,
+   For all save the rude and untutored brute,
+
+   Is loth its infernal depths to reveal,
+   And its dissolute motto engraven with fire,
+   Oh charmer! whose arms endless slumber inspire!
+   I abominate passion and wit makes me ill.
+
+   So let us love gently. Within his retreat,
+   Foreboding, Love seeks for his arrows a prey,
+   I know all the arms of his battle array.
+
+   Delirium and loathing--O pale Marguerite!
+   Like me, art thou not an autumnal ray,
+   Alas my so white, my so cold Marguerite!
+
+
+
+
+   Sadness of the Moon-Goddess
+
+
+   To-night the Moon dreams with increased weariness,
+   Like a beauty stretched forth on a downy heap
+   Of rugs, while her languorous fingers caress
+   The contour of her breasts, before falling to sleep.
+
+   On the satin back of the avalanche soft,
+   She falls into lingering swoons, as she dies,
+   While she lifteth her eyes to white visions aloft,
+   Which like efflorescence float up to the skies.
+
+   When at times, in her languor, down on to this sphere,
+   She slyly lets trickle a furtive tear,
+   A poet, desiring slumber to shun,
+
+   Takes up this pale tear in the palm of his hand
+   (The colours of which like an opal blend),
+   And buries it far from the eyes of the sun.
+
+
+
+
+   Cats
+
+
+   All ardent lovers and all sages prize,
+   --As ripening years incline upon their brows--
+   The mild and mighty cats--pride of the house--
+   That like unto them are indolent, stern and wise.
+
+   The friends of Learning and of Ecstasy,
+   They search for silence and the horrors of gloom;
+   The devil had used them for his steeds of Doom,
+   Could he alone have bent their pride to slavery.
+
+   When musing, they display those outlines chaste,
+   Of the great sphinxes--stretched o'er the sandy waste,
+   That seem to slumber deep in a dream without end:
+
+   From out their loins a fountainous furnace flies,
+   And grains of sparkling gold, as fine as sand,
+   Bestar the mystic pupils of their eyes.
+
+
+
+
+   Owls
+
+
+   Beneath the shades of sombre yews,
+   The silent owls sit ranged in rows,
+   Like ancient idols, strangely pose,
+   And darting fiery eyes, they muse.
+
+   Immovable, they sit and gaze,
+   Until the melancholy hour,
+   At which the darknesses devour
+   The faded sunset's slanting rays.
+
+   Their attitude, instructs the wise,
+   That he--within this world--who flies
+   From tumult and from merriment;
+
+   The man allured by a passing face,
+   For ever bears the chastisement
+   Of having wished to change his place.
+
+
+
+
+   Music
+
+
+   Oft Music possesses me like the seas!
+           To my planet pale,
+   'Neath a ceiling of mist, in the lofty breeze,
+           I set my sail.
+
+   With inflated lungs and expanded chest,
+           Like to a sail,
+   On the backs of the heaped-up billows I rest--
+           Which the shadows veil--
+
+   I feel all the anguish within me arise
+           Of a ship in distress;
+   The tempest, the rain, 'neath the lowering skies,
+
+           My body caress;
+   At times, the calm pool or the mirror clear
+           Of my despair!
+
+
+
+
+   The Joyous Defunct
+
+
+   Where snails abound--in a juicy soil,
+   I will dig for myself a fathomless grave,
+   Where at leisure mine ancient bones I can coil,
+   And sleep--quite forgotten--like a shark 'neath the wave.
+
+   I hate every tomb--I abominate wills,
+   And rather than tears from the world to implore,
+   I would ask of the crows with their vampire bills
+   To devour every bit of my carcass impure.
+
+   Oh worms, without eyes, without ears, black friends!
+   To you a defunct-one, rejoicing, descends,
+   Enlivened Philosophers--offspring of Dung!
+
+   Without any qualms, o'er my wreckage spread,
+   And tell if some torment there still can be wrung
+   For this soul-less old frame that is dead 'midst the dead!
+
+
+
+
+   The Broken Bell
+
+
+   How sweet and bitter, on a winter night,
+   Beside the palpitating fire to list,
+   As, slowly, distant memories alight,
+   To sounds of chimes that sing across the mist.
+
+   Oh, happy is that bell with hearty throat,
+   Which neither age nor time can e'er defeat,
+   Which faithfully uplifts its pious note,
+   Like an agèd soldier on his beat.
+
+   For me, my soul is cracked, and 'mid her cares,
+   Would often fill with her songs the midnight airs
+   And oft it chances that her feeble moan
+
+   Is like the wounded warrior's fainting groan,
+   Who by a lake of blood, 'neath bodies slain,
+   In anguish falls, and never moves again.
+
+
+
+
+   Spleen
+
+
+   The rainy moon of all the world is weary,
+   And from its urn a gloomy cold pours down,
+   Upon the pallid inmates of the mortuary,
+   And on the neighbouring outskirts of the town.
+
+   My wasted cat, in searching for a litter,
+   Bestirs its mangy paws from post to post;
+   (A poet's soul that wanders in the gutter,
+   With the jaded voice of a shiv'ring ghost).
+
+   The smoking pine-log, while the drone laments,
+   Accompanies the wheezy pendulum,
+   The while 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 fingers, 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,
+   We 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.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Flowers of Evil, by Charles Baudelaire
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+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Flowers Of Evil, by Charles Baudelaire.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Flowers of Evil, by Charles Baudelaire
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Flowers of Evil
+
+Author: Charles Baudelaire
+
+Translator: Cyril Scott
+
+Release Date: May 13, 2011 [EBook #36098]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWERS OF EVIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrea Ball and Marc D'Hooghe at
+http://www.freeliterature.org (From images generously made
+available by the Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>THE FLOWERS OF EVIL</h1>
+
+<h3>by</h3>
+
+<h2>CHARLES BAUDELAIRE</h2>
+
+
+<h4>TRANSLATED INTO</h4>
+
+<h4>ENGLISH  VERSE</h4>
+
+
+<h5>BY</h5>
+
+<h3>CYRIL SCOTT</h3>
+
+
+<h5>LONDON</h5>
+
+<h5>ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET</h5>
+
+<h5>M CM IX</h5>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h5>DEDICATED TO ARTHUR SYMONS</h5>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 95%;" />
+
+<p class="margin">
+<span class="caption">CONTENTS</span><br /><br />
+<a href="#Benediction"><b>Benediction</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Echoes"><b>Echoes</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Sick_Muse"><b>The Sick Muse</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Venal_Muse"><b>The Venal Muse</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Evil_Monk"><b>The Evil Monk</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Enemy"><b>The Enemy</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Ill_Luck"><b>Ill Luck</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Interior_Life"><b>Interior Life</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Man_and_the_Sea"><b>Man and the Sea</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Beauty"><b>Beauty</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Ideal"><b>The Ideal</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Giantess"><b>The Giantess</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Hymn_to_Beauty"><b>Hymn to Beauty</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Exotic_Perfume"><b>Exotic Perfume</b></a><br />
+<a href="#La_Chevelure"><b>La Chevelure</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Sonnet_XXVIII"><b>Sonnet XXVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Posthumous_Remorse"><b>Posthumous Remorse</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Balcony"><b>The Balcony</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Possessed_One"><b>The Possessed One</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Semper_Eadem"><b>Semper Eadem</b></a><br />
+<a href="#All_Entire"><b>All Entire</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Sonnet_XLIII"><b>Sonnet XLIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Living_Torch"><b>The Living Torch</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Spiritual_Dawn"><b>The Spiritual Dawn</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Evening_Harmony"><b>Evening Harmony</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Overcast_Sky"><b>Overcast Sky</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Invitation_to_a_Journey"><b>Invitation to a Journey</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Causerie"><b>"Causerie"</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Autumn_Song"><b>Autumn Song</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Sisina"><b>Sisina</b></a><br />
+<a href="#To_a_Creolean_Lady"><b>To a Creolean Lady</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Moesta_et_Errabunda"><b>Moesta et Errabunda</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Ghost"><b>The Ghost</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Autumn_Song_1"><b>Autumn Song</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Sadness_of_the_Moon-Goddess"><b>Sadness of the Moon-Goddess</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Cats"><b>Cats</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Owls"><b>Owls</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Music"><b>Music</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Joyous_Defunct"><b>The Joyous Defunct</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Broken_Bell"><b>The Broken Bell</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Spleen"><b>Spleen</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Obsession"><b>Obsession</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Magnetic_Horror"><b>Magnetic Horror</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Lid"><b>The Lid</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Berthas_Eyes"><b>Bertha's Eyes</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Set_of_the_Romantic_Sun"><b>The Set of the Romantic Sun</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Meditation"><b>Meditation</b></a><br />
+<a href="#To_a_Passer-by"><b>To a Passer-by</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Illusionary_Love"><b>Illusionary Love</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Mists_and_Rains"><b>Mists and Rains</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Wine_of_Lovers"><b>The Wine of Lovers</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Condemned_Women"><b>Condemned Women</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Death_of_the_Lovers"><b>The Death of the Lovers</b></a><br />
+<a href="#The_Death_of_the_Poor"><b>The Death of the Poor</b></a><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Benediction" id="Benediction"></a>Benediction</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">When by the changeless Power of a Supreme Decree</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The poet issues forth upon this sorry sphere,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">His mother, horrified, and full of blasphemy,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Uplifts her voice to God, who takes compassion on her.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Ah, why did I not bear a serpent's nest entire,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Instead of bringing forth this hideous Child of Doom!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Oh cursèd be that transient night of vain desire</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">When I conceived my expiation in my womb!"</span><br />
+<br />
+"Yet since among all women thou hast chosen me<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To be the degradation of my jaded mate,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And since I cannot like a love-leaf wantonly</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Consign this stunted monster to the glowing grate,"</span><br />
+<br />
+"I'll cause thine overwhelming hatred to rebound<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Upon the cursèd tool of thy most wicked spite.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Forsooth, the branches of this wretched tree I'll wound</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And rob its pestilential blossoms of their might!"</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">So thus, she giveth vent unto her foaming ire,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And knowing not the changeless statutes of all times,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Herself, amid the flames of hell, prepares the pyre;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The consecrated penance of maternal crimes.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Yet 'neath th' invisible shelter of an Angel's wing</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">This sunlight-loving infant disinherited,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Exhales from all he eats and drinks, and everything</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The ever sweet ambrosia and the nectar red.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">He trifles with the winds and with the clouds that glide,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">About the way unto the Cross, he loves to sing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The spirit on his pilgrimage; that faithful guide,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Oft weeps to see him joyful like a bird of Spring.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">All those that he would cherish shrink from him with fear,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And some that waxen bold by his tranquility,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Endeavour hard some grievance from his heart to tear,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And make on him the trial of their ferocity.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Within the bread and wine outspread for his repast</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To mingle dust and dirty spittle they essay,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And everything he touches, forth they slyly cast,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Or scourge themselves, if e'er their feet betrod his way.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">His wife goes round proclaiming in the crowded quads&mdash;</span><br />
+"Since he can find my body beauteous to behold,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Why not perform the office of those ancient gods</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And like unto them, redeck myself with shining gold?"</span><br />
+<br />
+"I'll bathe myself with incense, spikenard and myrrh,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">With genuflexions, delicate viandes and wine,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To see, in jest, if from a heart, that loves me dear,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I cannot filch away the hommages divine."</span><br />
+<br />
+"And when of these impious jokes at length I tire,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">My frail but mighty hands, around his breast entwined,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">With nails, like harpies' nails, shall cunningly conspire</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The hidden path unto his feeble heart to find."</span><br />
+<br />
+"And like a youngling bird that trembles in its nest,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I'll pluck his heart right out; within its own blood drowned,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And finally to satiate my favourite beast,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I'll throw it with intense disdain upon the ground!"</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Towards the Heavens where he sees the sacred grail</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The poet calmly stretches forth his pious arms,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Whereon the lightenings from his lucid spirit veil</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The sight of the infuriated mob that swarms.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Oh blest be thou, Almighty who bestowest pain,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Like some divine redress for our infirmities,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And like the most refreshing and the purest rain,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To sanctify the strong, for saintly ecstasies."</span><br />
+<br />
+"I know that for the poet thou wilt grant a chair,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Among the Sainted Legion and the Blissful ones,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">That of the endless feast thou wilt accord his share</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To him, of Virtues, Dominations and of Thrones."</span><br />
+<br />
+"I know, that Sorrow is that nobleness alone,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Which never may corrupted be by hell nor curse,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I know, in order to enwreathe my mystic crown</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I must inspire the ages and the universe."</span><br />
+<br />
+"And yet the buried jewels of Palmyra old,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The undiscovered metals and the pearly sea</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of gems, that unto me you show could never hold</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Beside this diadem of blinding brilliancy."</span><br />
+<br />
+"For it shall be engendered from the purest fire<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of rays primeval, from the holy hearth amassed,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of which the eyes of Mortals, in their sheen entire,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Are but the tarnished mirrors, sad and overcast!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Echoes" id="Echoes"></a>Echoes</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+In Nature's temple, living columns rise,<br />
+Which oftentimes give tongue to words subdued,<br />
+And Man traverses this symbolic wood,<br />
+Which looks at him with half familiar eyes,<br />
+<br />
+Like lingering echoes, which afar confound<br />
+Themselves in deep and sombre unity,<br />
+As vast as Night, and like transplendency,<br />
+The scents and colours to each other respond.<br />
+<br />
+And scents there are, like infant's flesh as chaste,<br />
+As sweet as oboes, and as meadows fair,<br />
+And others, proud, corrupted, rich and vast,<br />
+<br />
+Which have the expansion of infinity,<br />
+Like amber, musk and frankincense and myrrh,<br />
+That sing the soul's and senses' ecstasy.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Sick_Muse" id="The_Sick_Muse"></a>The Sick Muse</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Alas&mdash;my poor Muse&mdash;what aileth thee now?<br />
+Thine eyes are bedimmed with the visions of Night,<br />
+And silent and cold&mdash;I perceive on thy brow<br />
+In their turns&mdash;Despair and Madness alight.<br />
+<br />
+A succubus green, or a hobgoblin red,<br />
+Has it poured o'er thee Horror and Love from its urn?<br />
+Or the Nightmare with masterful bearing hath led<br />
+Thee to drown in the depths of some magic Minturne?<br />
+<br />
+I wish, as the health-giving fragrance I cull,<br />
+That thy breast with strong thoughts could for ever be full,<br />
+And that rhymthmic'ly flowing&mdash;thy Christian blood<br />
+<br />
+Could resemble the olden-time metrical-flood,<br />
+Where each in his turn reigned the father of Rhymes<br />
+Phoebus&mdash;and Pan, lord of Harvest-times.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Venal_Muse" id="The_Venal_Muse"></a>The Venal Muse</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Oh Muse of my heart&mdash;so fond of palaces old,<br />
+Wilt have&mdash;when New Year speeds its wintry blast,<br />
+Amid those tedious nights, with snow o'ercast,<br />
+A log to warm thy feet, benumbed with cold?<br />
+<br />
+Wilt thou thy marbled shoulders then revive<br />
+With nightly rays that through thy shutters peep?<br />
+And&mdash;void thy purse and void thy palace&mdash;reap<br />
+A golden hoard within some azure hive?<br />
+<br />
+Thou must, to earn thy daily bread, each night,<br />
+Suspend the censer like an acolyte,<br />
+Te-Deums sing, with sanctimonious ease,<br />
+<br />
+Or as a famished mountebank, with jokes obscene<br />
+Essay to lull the vulgar rabble's spleen;<br />
+Thy laughter soaked in tears which no one sees.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Evil_Monk" id="The_Evil_Monk"></a>The Evil Monk</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+The cloisters old, expounded on their walls<br />
+With paintings, the Beatic Verity,<br />
+The which&mdash;adorning their religious halls,<br />
+Enriched the frigidness of their Austerity.<br />
+<br />
+In days when Christian seeds bloomed o'er the land,<br />
+Full many a noble monk unknown to-day,<br />
+Upon the field of tombs would take his stand,<br />
+Exalting Death in rude and simple way.<br />
+<br />
+My soul is a tomb where&mdash;bad monk that I be&mdash;<br />
+I dwell and search its depths from all eternity,<br />
+And nought bedecks the walls of the odious spot.<br />
+<br />
+Oh sluggard monk! when shall I glean aright<br />
+From the living spectacle of my bitter lot,<br />
+To mold my handywork and mine eyes' Delight?<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Enemy" id="The_Enemy"></a>The Enemy</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+My childhood was nought but a ravaging storm,<br />
+Enlivened at times by a brilliant sun;<br />
+The rain and the winds wrought such havoc and harm<br />
+That of buds on my plot there remains hardly one.<br />
+<br />
+Behold now the Fall of ideas I have reached,<br />
+And the shovel and rake one must therefore resume,<br />
+In collecting the turf, inundated and breached,<br />
+Where the waters dug trenches as deep as a tomb.<br />
+<br />
+And yet these new blossoms, for which I craved,<br />
+Will they find in this earth&mdash;like a shore that is laved&mdash;<br />
+The mystical fuel which vigour imparts?<br />
+<br />
+Oh misery!&mdash;Time devours our lives,<br />
+And the enemy black, which consumeth our hearts<br />
+On the blood of our bodies, increases and thrives!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Ill_Luck" id="Ill_Luck"></a>Ill Luck</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+This heavy burden to uplift,<br />
+O Sysiphus, thy pluck is required!<br />
+And even though the heart aspired,<br />
+Art is long and Time is swift.<br />
+<br />
+Afar from sepulchres renowned,<br />
+To a graveyard, quite apart,<br />
+Like a broken drum, my heart,<br />
+Beats the funeral marches' sound.<br />
+<br />
+Many a buried jewel sleeps<br />
+In the long-forgotten deeps,<br />
+Far from mattock and from sound;<br />
+<br />
+Many a flower wafts aloft<br />
+Its perfumes, like a secret soft,<br />
+Within the solitudes, profound.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Interior_Life" id="Interior_Life"></a>Interior Life</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+A long while I dwelt beneath vast porticoes,<br />
+While the ocean-suns bathed with a thousand fires,<br />
+And which with their great and majestic spires,<br />
+At eventide looked like basaltic grottoes.<br />
+<br />
+The billows, in rolling depictured the skies,<br />
+And mingled, in solemn and mystical strain,<br />
+The all-mighteous chords of their luscious refrain<br />
+With the sun-set's colours reflexed in mine eyes.<br />
+<br />
+It is there that I lived in exalted calm,<br />
+In the midst of the azure, the splendour, the waves,<br />
+While pregnant with perfumes, naked slaves<br />
+<br />
+Refreshed my forehead with branches of palm,<br />
+Whose gentle and only care was to know<br />
+The secret that caused me to languish so.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Man_and_the_Sea" id="Man_and_the_Sea"></a>Man and the Sea</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Free man! the sea is to thee ever dear!<br />
+The sea is thy mirror, thou regardest thy soul<br />
+In its mighteous waves that unendingly roll,<br />
+And thy spirit is yet not a chasm less drear.<br />
+<br />
+Thou delight'st to plunge deep in thine image down;<br />
+Thou tak'st it with eyes and with arms in embrace,<br />
+And at times thine own inward voice would'st efface<br />
+With the sound of its savage ungovernable moan.<br />
+<br />
+You are both of you, sombre, secretive and deep:<br />
+Oh mortal, thy depths are foraye unexplored,<br />
+Oh sea&mdash;no one knoweth thy dazzling hoard,<br />
+You both are so jealous your secrets to keep!<br />
+<br />
+And endless ages have wandered by,<br />
+Yet still without pity or mercy you fight,<br />
+So mighty in plunder and death your delight:<br />
+Oh wrestlers! so constant in enmity!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Beauty" id="Beauty"></a>Beauty</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+I am lovely, O mortals, like a dream of stone,<br />
+And my bosom, where each one gets bruised in turn,<br />
+To inspire the love of a poet is prone,<br />
+Like matter eternally silent and stern.<br />
+<br />
+As an unfathomed sphinx, enthroned by the Nile,<br />
+My heart a swan's whiteness with granite combines,<br />
+And I hate every movement, displacing the lines,<br />
+And never I weep and never I smile.<br />
+<br />
+The poets in front of mine attitudes fine<br />
+(Which the proudest of monuments seem to implant),<br />
+To studies profound all their moments assign,<br />
+<br />
+For I have all these docile swains to enchant&mdash;<br />
+Two mirrors, which Beauty in all things ignite:<br />
+Mine eyes, my large eyes, of eternal Light!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Ideal" id="The_Ideal"></a>The Ideal</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+It could ne'er be those beauties of ivory vignettes;<br />
+The varied display of a worthless age,<br />
+Nor puppet-like figures with castonets,<br />
+That ever an heart like mine could engage.<br />
+<br />
+I leave to Gavarni, that poet of chlorosis,<br />
+His hospital-beauties in troups that whirl,<br />
+For I cannot discover amid his pale roses<br />
+A flower to resemble my scarlet ideal.<br />
+<br />
+Since, what for this fathomless heart I require<br />
+Is&mdash;Lady Macbeth you! in crime so dire;<br />
+&mdash;An Æschylus dream transposed from the South&mdash;<br />
+<br />
+Or thee, oh great "Night" of Michael-Angelo born,<br />
+Who so calmly thy limbs in strange posture hath drawn,<br />
+Whose allurements are framed for a Titan's mouth.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Giantess" id="The_Giantess"></a>The Giantess</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+I should have loved&mdash;erewhile when Heaven conceived<br />
+Each day, some child abnormal and obscene,<br />
+Beside a maiden giantess to have lived,<br />
+Like a luxurious cat at the feet of a queen;<br />
+<br />
+To see her body flowering with her soul,<br />
+And grow, unchained, in awe-inspiring art,<br />
+Within the mists across her eyes that stole<br />
+To divine the fires entombed within her heart.<br />
+<br />
+And oft to scramble o'er her mighty limbs,<br />
+And climb the slopes of her enormous knees,<br />
+Or in summer when the scorching sunlight streams<br />
+<br />
+Across the country, to recline at ease,<br />
+And slumber in the shadow of her breast<br />
+Like an hamlet 'neath the mountain-crest.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Hymn_to_Beauty" id="Hymn_to_Beauty"></a>Hymn to Beauty</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+O Beauty! dost thou generate from Heaven or from Hell?<br />
+Within thy glance, so diabolic and divine,<br />
+Confusedly both wickedness and goodness dwell,<br />
+And hence one might compare thee unto sparkling wine.<br />
+<br />
+Thy look containeth both the dawn and sunset stars,<br />
+Thy perfumes, as upon a sultry night exhale,<br />
+Thy kiss a philter, and thy mouth a Grecian vase,<br />
+That renders heroes cowardly and infants hale.<br />
+<br />
+Yea, art thou from the planets, or the fiery womb?<br />
+The demon follows in thy train, with magic fraught,<br />
+Thou scatter'st seeds haphazardly of joy and doom,<br />
+Thou govern'st everything, but answer'st unto nought.<br />
+<br />
+O Loveliness! thou spurnest corpses with delight,<br />
+Among thy jewels, Horror hath such charms for thee,<br />
+And Murder 'mid thy mostly cherished trinklets bright,<br />
+Upon thy massive bosom dances amorously.<br />
+<br />
+The blinded, fluttering moth towards the candle flies,<br />
+Then frizzles, falls, and falters&mdash;"Blessings unto thee"&mdash;<br />
+The panting swain that o'er his beauteous mistress sighs,<br />
+Seems like the Sick, that stroke their gravestones lovingly.<br />
+<br />
+What matter, if thou comest from the Heavens or Hell,<br />
+O Beauty, frightful ghoul, ingenuous and obscure!<br />
+So long thine eyes, thy smile, to me the way can tell<br />
+Towards that Infinite I love, but never saw.<br />
+<br />
+From God or Satan? Angel, Mermaid, Proserpine?<br />
+What matter if thou makest&mdash;blithe, voluptuous sprite&mdash;<br />
+With rhythms, perfumes, visions&mdash;O mine only queen!&mdash;<br />
+The universe less hideous and the hours less trite.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Exotic_Perfume" id="Exotic_Perfume"></a>Exotic Perfume</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+When, with closed eyes, on a hot afternoon,<br />
+The scent of thine ardent breast I inhale,<br />
+Celestial vistas my spirit assail;<br />
+Caressed by the flames of an endless sun.<br />
+<br />
+A langorous island, where Nature abounds<br />
+With exotic trees and luscious fruit;<br />
+And with men whose bodies are slim and astute,<br />
+And with women whose frankness delights and astounds.<br />
+<br />
+By thy perfume enticed to this region remote,<br />
+A port I see, laden with mast and with boat,<br />
+Still wearied and torn by the distant brine;<br />
+<br />
+While the tamarisk-odours that dreamily throng<br />
+The air, round my slumberous senses intwine,<br />
+And mix, in my soul, with the mariners' song.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="La_Chevelure" id="La_Chevelure"></a>La Chevelure</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+O fleece, that foams down unto the shoulders bare!<br />
+O curls, O scents which lovely languidness exhale!<br />
+Delight! to fill this alcove's sombre atmosphere<br />
+With memories, sleeping deep within this tress of hair,<br />
+I'll wave it in the evening breezes like a veil!<br />
+<br />
+The shores of Africa, and Asia's burning skies,<br />
+A world forgotten, distant, nearly dead and spent,<br />
+Within thy depths, O aromatic forest! lies.<br />
+And like to spirits floating unto melodies,<br />
+Mine own, Belovèd! glides within thy sacred scent.<br />
+<br />
+There I will hasten, where the trees and humankind<br />
+With languor lull beside the hot and silent sea;<br />
+Strong tresses bear me, be to me the waves and wind!<br />
+Within thy fragrance lies a dazzling dream confined<br />
+Of sails and masts and flames&mdash;O lake of ebony!<br />
+<br />
+A loudly echoing harbour, where my soul may hold<br />
+To quaff, the silver cup of colours, scents and sounds,<br />
+Wherein the vessels glide upon a sea of gold,<br />
+And stretch their mighty arms, the glory to enfold<br />
+Of virgin skies, where never-ending heat abounds.<br />
+<br />
+I'll plunge my brow, enamoured with voluptuousness<br />
+Within this darkling ocean of infinitude,<br />
+Until my subtle spirit, which thy waves caress,<br />
+Shall find you once again, O fertile weariness;<br />
+Unending lullabye of perfumed lassitude!<br />
+<br />
+Ye tresses blue&mdash;recess of strange and sombre shades,<br />
+Ye make the azure of the starry Realm immense;<br />
+Upon the downy beeches, by your curls' cascades,<br />
+Among your mingling fragrances, my spirit wades<br />
+To cull the musk and cocoa-nut and lotus scents.<br />
+<br />
+Long&mdash;foraye&mdash;my hand, within thy heavy mane,<br />
+Shall scatter rubies, pearls, sapphires eternally,<br />
+And thus my soul's desire for thee shall never wane;<br />
+For art not thou the oasis where I dream and drain<br />
+With draughts profound, the golden wine of memory?<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Sonnet_XXVIII" id="Sonnet_XXVIII"></a>Sonnet XXVIII</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+With pearly robes that wave within the wind,<br />
+Even when she walks, she seems to dance,<br />
+Like swaying serpents round those wands entwined<br />
+Which fakirs ware in rhythmic elegance.<br />
+<br />
+So like the desert's Blue, and the sands remote,<br />
+Both, deaf to mortal suffering and to strife,<br />
+Or like the sea-weeds 'neath the waves that float,<br />
+Indifferently she moulds her budding life.<br />
+<br />
+Her polished eyes are made of minerals bright,<br />
+And in her mien, symbolical and cold,<br />
+Wherein an angel mingles with a sphinx of old,<br />
+<br />
+Where all is gold, and steel, and gems, and light,<br />
+There shines, just like a useless star eternally,<br />
+The sterile woman's frigid majesty.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Posthumous_Remorse" id="Posthumous_Remorse"></a>Posthumous Remorse</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Ah, when thou shalt slumber, my darkling love,<br />
+Beneath a black marble-made statuette,<br />
+And when thou'lt have nought for thy house or alcove,<br />
+But a cavernous den and a damp oubliette.<br />
+<br />
+When the tomb-stone, oppressing thy timorous breast,<br />
+And thy hips drooping sweetly with listless decay,<br />
+The pulse and desires of mine heart shall arrest,<br />
+And thy feet from pursuing their adventurous way,<br />
+<br />
+Then the grave, that dark friend of my limitless dreams<br />
+(For the grave ever readeth the poet aright),<br />
+Amid those long nights, which no slumber redeems<br />
+<br />
+'Twill query&mdash;"What use to thee, incomplete spright<br />
+That thou ne'er hast unfathomed the tears of the dead"?&mdash;<br />
+Then the worms will gnaw deep at thy body, like Dread.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Balcony" id="The_Balcony"></a>The Balcony</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Oh, Mother of Memories! Mistress of Mistresses!<br />
+Oh, thou all my pleasures, oh, thou all my prayers!<br />
+Can'st thou remember those luscious caresses,<br />
+The charm of the hearth and the sweet evening airs?<br />
+Oh, Mother, of Memories, Mistress of Mistresses!<br />
+<br />
+Those evenings illumed by the glow of the coal,<br />
+And those roseate nights with their vaporous wings,<br />
+How calm was thy breast and how good was thy soul,<br />
+'Twas then we uttered imperishable things,<br />
+Those evenings illumed by the glow of the coal.<br />
+<br />
+How lovely the suns on those hot, autumn nights!<br />
+How vast were the heavens! and the heart how hale!<br />
+As I leaned towards you&mdash;oh, my Queen of Delights,<br />
+The scent of thy blood I seemed to inhale.<br />
+How lovely the sun on those hot, autumn nights!<br />
+<br />
+The shadows of night-time grew dense like a pall,<br />
+And deep through the darkness thine eyes I divined,<br />
+And I drank of thy breath&mdash;oh sweetness, oh gall,<br />
+And thy feet in my brotherly hands reclined,<br />
+The shadows of Night-time grew dense like a pall.<br />
+<br />
+I know how to call forth those moments so dear,<br />
+And to live my Past&mdash;laid on thy knees&mdash;once more,<br />
+For where should I seek for thy beauties but here<br />
+In thy langorous heart and thy body so pure?<br />
+I know how to call forth those moments so dear.<br />
+<br />
+Those perfumes, those infinite kisses and sighs,<br />
+Are they born in some gulf to our plummets denied?<br />
+Like rejuvenate suns that mount up to the skies,<br />
+That first have been cleansed in the depths of the tide;<br />
+Oh, perfumes! oh, infinite kisses and sighs!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Possessed_One" id="The_Possessed_One"></a>The Possessed One</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+The sun is enveloped in crape! like it,<br />
+O Moon of my Life! wrap thyself up in shade;<br />
+At will, smoke or slumber, be silent, be staid,<br />
+And dive deep down in Dispassion's dark pit.<br />
+<br />
+I cherish thee thus! But if 'tis thy mood,<br />
+Like a star that from out its penumbra appears,<br />
+To float in the regions where madness careers,<br />
+Fair dagger! burst forth from thy sheath! 'tis good.<br />
+<br />
+Yea, light up thine eyes at the Fire of Renown!<br />
+Or kindle desire by the looks of some clown!<br />
+Thine All is my joy, whether dull or aflame!<br />
+<br />
+Just be what thou wilt, black night, dawn divine,<br />
+There is not a nerve in my trembling frame<br />
+But cries, "I adore thee, Beelzebub mine!"<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Semper_Eadem" id="Semper_Eadem"></a>Semper Eadem</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+"From whence it comes, you ask, this gloom acute,<br />
+Like waves that o'er the rocky headland fall?"<br />
+&mdash;When once our hearts have gathered in their fruit,<br />
+To live is a curse! a secret known to all,<br />
+<br />
+A grief, quite simple, nought mysterious,<br />
+And like your joy&mdash;for all, both loud and shrill,<br />
+Nay cease to clamour, be not e'er so curious!<br />
+And yet although your voice is sweet, be still!<br />
+<br />
+Be still, O soul, with rapture ever rife!<br />
+O mouth, with the childish smile! Far more than Life,<br />
+The subtle bonds of Death around us twine.<br />
+<br />
+Let&mdash;let my heart, the wine of falsehood drink,<br />
+And dream-like, deep within your fair eyes sink,<br />
+And in the shade of thy lashes long recline!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="All_Entire" id="All_Entire"></a>All Entire</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The Demon, in my lofty vault,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">This morning came to visit me,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And striving me to find at fault,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">He said, "Fain would I know of thee;</span><br />
+<br />
+"Among the many beauteous things,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">&mdash;All which <i>her</i> subtle grace proclaim&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Among the dark and rosy things,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Which go to make her charming frame,</span><br />
+<br />
+"Which is the sweetest unto thee"?<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">My soul! to Him thou didst retort&mdash;</span><br />
+"Since all with her is destiny,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of preference there can be nought.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">When all transports me with delight,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">If aught deludes I can not know,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">She either lulls one like the Night,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Or dazzles like the Morning-glow.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">That harmony is too divine,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Which governs all her body fair,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">For powerless mortals to define</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">In notes the many concords there.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">O mystic metamorphosis</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of all my senses blent in one!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Her voice a beauteous perfume is,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Her breath makes music, chaste and wan.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Sonnet_XLIII" id="Sonnet_XLIII"></a>Sonnet XLIII</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+What sayest thou, to-night, poor soul so drear,<br />
+What sayest&mdash;heart erewhile engulfed in gloom,<br />
+To the very lovely, very chaste, and very dear,<br />
+Whose god-like look hath made thee to re-bloom?<br />
+<br />
+To her, with pride we chant an echoing Hymn,<br />
+For nought can touch the sweetness of her sway;<br />
+Her flesh ethereal as the seraphim,<br />
+Her eyes with robe of light our souls array.<br />
+<br />
+And be it in the night, or solitude,<br />
+Among the streets or 'mid the multitude,<br />
+Her shadow, torch-like, dances in the air,<br />
+<br />
+And murmurs, "I, the Beautiful proclaim&mdash;<br />
+That for my sake, alone ye love the Fair;<br />
+I am the Guardian Angel, Muse and Dame!"<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Living_Torch" id="The_Living_Torch"></a>The Living Torch</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+They stand before me now, those eyes that shine,<br />
+No doubt inspired by an Angel wise;<br />
+They stand, those God-like brothers that are mine,<br />
+And pour their diamond fires in mine eyes.<br />
+<br />
+From all transgressions, from all snares, they save,<br />
+Towards the Path of Joy they guide my ways;<br />
+They are my servants, and I am their slave;<br />
+And all my soul, this living torch obeys.<br />
+<br />
+Ye charming Eyes&mdash;ye have those mystic beams,<br />
+Of candles, burning in full day; the sun<br />
+Awakes, yet kills not their fantastic gleams:<br />
+<br />
+Ye sing the Awak'ning, they the dark oblivion;<br />
+The Awak'ning of my spirit ye proclaim,<br />
+O stars&mdash;no sun can ever kill your flame!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Spiritual_Dawn" id="The_Spiritual_Dawn"></a>The Spiritual Dawn</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+When the morning white and rosy breaks,<br />
+With the gnawing Ideal, upon the debauchee,<br />
+By the power of a strange decree,<br />
+Within the sotted beast an Angel wakes.<br />
+<br />
+The mental Heaven's inaccessible blue,<br />
+For wearied mortals that still dream and mourn,<br />
+Expands and sinks; towards the chasm drawn.<br />
+Thus, cherished goddess, Being pure and true&mdash;<br />
+<br />
+Upon the rests of foolish orgy-nights<br />
+Thine image, more sublime, more pink, more clear,<br />
+Before my staring eyes is ever there.<br />
+<br />
+The sun has darkened all the candle lights;<br />
+And thus thy spectre like the immortal sun,<br />
+Is ever victorious&mdash;thou resplendent one!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Evening_Harmony" id="Evening_Harmony"></a>Evening Harmony</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+The hour approacheth, when, as their stems incline,<br />
+The flowers evaporate like an incense urn,<br />
+And sounds and scents in the vesper breezes turn;<br />
+A melancholy waltz&mdash;and a drowsiness divine.<br />
+<br />
+The flowers evaporate like an incense urn,<br />
+The viol vibrates like the wailing of souls that repine.<br />
+A melancholy waltz&mdash;and a drowsiness divine,<br />
+The skies like a mosque are beautiful and stern.<br />
+<br />
+The viol vibrates like the wailing of souls that repine;<br />
+Sweet souls that shrink from chaos vast and etern,<br />
+The skies like a mosque are beautiful and stern,<br />
+The sunset drowns within its blood-red brine.<br />
+<br />
+Sweet souls that shrink from chaos vast and etern,<br />
+Essay the wreaths of their faded Past to entwine,<br />
+The sunset drowns within its blood-red brine,<br />
+Thy thought within me glows like an incense urn.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Overcast_Sky" id="Overcast_Sky"></a>Overcast Sky</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Meseemeth thy glance, soft enshrouded with dew,<br />
+Thy mysterious eyes (are they grey, green or blue?),<br />
+Alternately cruel, and tender, and shy,<br />
+Reflect both the languor and calm of the sky.<br />
+<br />
+Thou recallest those white days&mdash;with shadows caressed,<br />
+Engendering tears from th' enraptured breast,<br />
+When racked by an anguish unfathomed that weeps,<br />
+The nerves, too awake, jibe the spirit that sleeps.<br />
+<br />
+At times&mdash;thou art like those horizons divine,<br />
+Where the suns of the nebulous seasons decline;<br />
+How resplendent art thou&mdash;O pasturage vast,<br />
+Illumed by the beams of a sky overcast!<br />
+<br />
+O! dangerous dame&mdash;oh seductive clime!<br />
+As well, will I love both thy snow and thy rime,<br />
+And shall I know how from the frosts to entice<br />
+Delights that are keener than iron and ice?<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Invitation_to_a_Journey" id="Invitation_to_a_Journey"></a>Invitation to a Journey</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My sister, my dear</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Consider how fair,</span><br />
+Together to live it would be!<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Down yonder to fly</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To love, till we die,</span><br />
+In the land which resembles thee.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Those suns that rise</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Neath erratic skies,</span><br />
+&mdash;No charm could be like unto theirs&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So strange and divine,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Like those eyes of thine</span><br />
+Which glow in the midst of their tears.<br />
+<br />
+There, all is order and loveliness,<br />
+Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The tables and chairs,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Polished bright by the years,</span><br />
+Would decorate sweetly our rooms,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the rarest of flowers</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Would twine round our bowers</span><br />
+And mingle their amber perfumes:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The ceilings arrayed,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the mirrors inlaid,</span><br />
+This Eastern splendour among,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Would furtively steal</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O'er our souls, and appeal</span><br />
+With its tranquillous native tongue.<br />
+<br />
+There, all is order and loveliness,<br />
+Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the harbours, peep,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">At the vessels asleep</span><br />
+(Their humour is always to roam),<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet it is but to grant</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy smallest want</span><br />
+From the ends of the earth that they come,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The sunsets beam</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Upon meadow and stream,</span><br />
+And upon the city entire<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Neath a violet crest,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The world sinks to rest,</span><br />
+Illumed by a golden fire.<br />
+<br />
+There, all is order and loveliness,<br />
+Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Causerie" id="Causerie"></a>"Causerie"</h3>
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+You are a roseate autumn-sky, that glows!<br />
+Yet sadness rises in me like the flood,<br />
+And leaves in ebbing on my lips morose,<br />
+The poignant memory of its bitter mind.<br />
+<br />
+In vain your hands my swooning breast embrace,<br />
+Oh, friend! alone remains the plundered spot,<br />
+Where woman's biting grip has left its trace:<br />
+My heart, the beasts devoured--seek it not!<br />
+<br />
+My heart is a palace pillaged by the herd;<br />
+They kill and take each other by the throat!<br />
+A perfume glides around your bosom bared--<br />
+<br />
+O loveliness, thou scourge of souls--devote<br />
+Thine eyes of fire--luminous-like feasts,<br />
+To burn these rags--rejected by the beasts!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Autumn_Song" id="Autumn_Song"></a>Autumn Song</h3>
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+I<br />
+<br />
+Shortly we will plunge within the frigid gloom,<br />
+Farewell swift summer brightness; all too short--<br />
+I hear already sounding with a death-like boom<br />
+The wood that falls upon the pavement of the court.<br />
+<br />
+The whole of winter enters in my Being--pain,<br />
+Hate, honor, labour hard and forced--and dread,<br />
+And like the northern sun upon its polar plane<br />
+My heart will soon be but a stone, iced and red.<br />
+<br />
+I listen trembling unto every log that falls,<br />
+The scaffold, which they build, has not a duller sound,<br />
+My spirits waver, like the trembling tower walls<br />
+that shake--with every echoing blow the builders pound.<br />
+<br />
+Meeseemeth--as to these monotonous blows I sway,<br />
+They nail for one a coffin lid, or sound a knell--<br />
+For whom? Autumn now--and summer yesterday!<br />
+This strange mysterious noise betokens a farewell.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+II<br />
+<br />
+I love within your oblong eyes the verdant rays,<br />
+My sweet! but bitter everything to-day meseems:<br />
+And nought--your love, the boudoir, nor the flickering blaze,<br />
+Can replace the sun that o'er the screen streams.<br />
+<br />
+And yet bemother and caress me, tender heart!<br />
+Even me the thankless and the worthless one;<br />
+Beloved or sister--unto me the sweets impart<br />
+Of a glorious autumn or a sinking sun.<br />
+<br />
+Ephemeral task! the beckoning the beckoning empty tomb is set!<br />
+Oh grant me--as upon your knees my head I lay,<br />
+(Because the white and torrid summer I regret),<br />
+To taste the parted season's mild and amber ray.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Sisina" id="Sisina"></a>Sisina</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Imagine Diana in gorgeous array,<br />
+How into the forests and thickets she flies,<br />
+With her hair in the breezes, and flushed for the fray,<br />
+How the very best riders she proudly defies.<br />
+<br />
+Have you seen Théroigne, of the blood-thirsty heart,<br />
+As an unshod herd to attack he bestirs,<br />
+With cheeks all inflamed, playing up to his part,<br />
+As he goes, sword in hand, up the royal stairs?<br />
+<br />
+And so is Sisina&mdash;yet this warrior sweet,<br />
+Has a soul with compassion and kindness replete,<br />
+Inspired by drums and by powder, her sway<br />
+<br />
+Knows how to concede to the supplicants' prayers,<br />
+And her bosom, laid waste by the flames, has alway,<br />
+For those that are worthy, a fountain of tears.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="To_a_Creolean_Lady" id="To_a_Creolean_Lady"></a>To a Creolean Lady</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+In a country perfumed with the sun's embrace,<br />
+I knew 'neath a dais of purpled palms,<br />
+And branches where idleness weeps o'er one's face,<br />
+A Creolean lady of unknown charms.<br />
+<br />
+Her tint, pale and warm&mdash;this bewitching bride,<br />
+Displays a nobly nurtured mien,<br />
+Courageous and grand like a huntsman, her stride;<br />
+A tranquil smile and eyes serene.<br />
+<br />
+If, madam, you'd go to the true land of gain,<br />
+By the banks of the verdant Loire or the Seine,<br />
+How worthy to garnish some pile of renown.<br />
+<br />
+You'd awake in the calm of some shadowy nest,<br />
+A thousand songs in the poet's breast,<br />
+That your eyes would inspire far more than your brown.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Moesta_et_Errabunda" id="Moesta_et_Errabunda"></a>Moesta et Errabunda</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Oh, Agatha, tell! does thy heart not at times fly away?<br />
+Far from the city impure and the lowering sea,<br />
+To another ocean that blinds with its dazzling array,<br />
+So blue and so clear and profound, like virginity?<br />
+Oh, Agatha, tell! does thy heart not at times fly away?<br />
+<br />
+The sea, the vast ocean our travail and trouble consoles!<br />
+What demon hath gifted the sea with a voice from on high,<br />
+To sing us (attuned to an Æolus-organ that rolls<br />
+Forth a grumbling burden) a lenitive lullabye?<br />
+The sea, the vast ocean our travail and trouble consoles!<br />
+<br />
+Oh, carry me, waggons, oh, sailing-ships, help me depart!<br />
+Far, far, here the dust is quite wet with our showering tears,<br />
+Oh, say! it is true that Agatha's desolate heart,<br />
+Proclaimeth, "Away from remorse, and from crimes, and from cares,"<br />
+Oh, carry me, waggons, oh, sailing ships, help me depart!<br />
+<br />
+How distant you seem to be, perfumed Elysian fields!<br />
+Wherein there is nothing but sunshine and love and glee;<br />
+Where all that one loves is so worthy, and lovingly yields,<br />
+And our hearts float about in the purest of ecstasy,<br />
+How distant you seem to be, perfumed Elysian fields!<br />
+<br />
+But the green paradise of those transient infantile loves,<br />
+The strolls, and the songs, and the kisses, and bunches of flowers,<br />
+The viols vibrating beyond, in the mountainous groves,<br />
+With the chalice of wine and the evening, entwined, in the bowers,<br />
+But the green paradise of those transient infantile loves.<br />
+<br />
+That innocent heaven o'erflowing with furtive delight,<br />
+Than China or India, is it still further away?<br />
+Or, could one with pityful prayers bring it back to our sight?<br />
+Or yet with a silvery voice o'er the ages convey<br />
+That innocent heaven o'erflowing with furtive delight!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Ghost" id="The_Ghost"></a>The Ghost</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Just like an angel with evil eye,<br />
+I shall return to thee silently,<br />
+Upon thy bower I'll alight,<br />
+With falling shadows of the night.<br />
+<br />
+With thee, my brownie, I'll commune,<br />
+And give thee kisses cold as the moon,<br />
+And with a serpent's moist embrace,<br />
+I'll crawl around thy resting-place.<br />
+<br />
+And when the livid morning falls,<br />
+Thou'lt find alone the empty walls,<br />
+And till the evening, cold 'twill be.<br />
+<br />
+As others with their tenderness,<br />
+Upon thy life and youthfulness,<br />
+I'll reign alone with dread o'er thee.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Autumn_Song_1" id="Autumn_Song_1"></a>Autumn Song</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+They ask me&mdash;thy crystalline eyes, so acute,<br />
+"Odd lover&mdash;why am I to thee so dear?"<br />
+&mdash;Be sweet and keep silent, my heart, which is sear,<br />
+For all save the rude and untutored brute,<br />
+<br />
+Is loth its infernal depths to reveal,<br />
+And its dissolute motto engraven with fire,<br />
+Oh charmer! whose arms endless slumber inspire!<br />
+I abominate passion and wit makes me ill.<br />
+<br />
+So let us love gently. Within his retreat,<br />
+Foreboding, Love seeks for his arrows a prey,<br />
+I know all the arms of his battle array.<br />
+<br />
+Delirium and loathing&mdash;O pale Marguerite!<br />
+Like me, art thou not an autumnal ray,<br />
+Alas my so white, my so cold Marguerite!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Sadness_of_the_Moon-Goddess" id="Sadness_of_the_Moon-Goddess"></a>Sadness of the Moon-Goddess</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+To-night the Moon dreams with increased weariness,<br />
+Like a beauty stretched forth on a downy heap<br />
+Of rugs, while her languorous fingers caress<br />
+The contour of her breasts, before falling to sleep.<br />
+<br />
+On the satin back of the avalanche soft,<br />
+She falls into lingering swoons, as she dies,<br />
+While she lifteth her eyes to white visions aloft,<br />
+Which like efflorescence float up to the skies.<br />
+<br />
+When at times, in her languor, down on to this sphere,<br />
+She slyly lets trickle a furtive tear,<br />
+A poet, desiring slumber to shun,<br />
+<br />
+Takes up this pale tear in the palm of his hand<br />
+(The colours of which like an opal blend),<br />
+And buries it far from the eyes of the sun.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Cats" id="Cats"></a>Cats</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+All ardent lovers and all sages prize,<br />
+&mdash;As ripening years incline upon their brows&mdash;<br />
+The mild and mighty cats&mdash;pride of the house&mdash;<br />
+That like unto them are indolent, stern and wise.<br />
+<br />
+The friends of Learning and of Ecstasy,<br />
+They search for silence and the horrors of gloom;<br />
+The devil had used them for his steeds of Doom,<br />
+Could he alone have bent their pride to slavery.<br />
+<br />
+When musing, they display those outlines chaste,<br />
+Of the great sphinxes&mdash;stretched o'er the sandy waste,<br />
+That seem to slumber deep in a dream without end:<br />
+<br />
+From out their loins a fountainous furnace flies,<br />
+And grains of sparkling gold, as fine as sand,<br />
+Bestar the mystic pupils of their eyes.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Owls" id="Owls"></a>Owls</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Beneath the shades of sombre yews,<br />
+The silent owls sit ranged in rows,<br />
+Like ancient idols, strangely pose,<br />
+And darting fiery eyes, they muse.<br />
+<br />
+Immovable, they sit and gaze,<br />
+Until the melancholy hour,<br />
+At which the darknesses devour<br />
+The faded sunset's slanting rays.<br />
+<br />
+Their attitude, instructs the wise,<br />
+That he&mdash;within this world&mdash;who flies<br />
+From tumult and from merriment;<br />
+<br />
+The man allured by a passing face,<br />
+For ever bears the chastisement<br />
+Of having wished to change his place.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Music" id="Music"></a>Music</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Oft Music possesses me like the seas!<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">To my planet pale,</span><br />
+'Neath a ceiling of mist, in the lofty breeze,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">I set my sail.</span><br />
+<br />
+With inflated lungs and expanded chest,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Like to a sail,</span><br />
+On the backs of the heaped-up billows I rest&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Which the shadows veil&mdash;</span><br />
+<br />
+I feel all the anguish within me arise<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Of a ship in distress;</span><br />
+The tempest, the rain, 'neath the lowering skies,<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">My body caress;</span><br />
+At times, the calm pool or the mirror clear<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Of my despair!</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Joyous_Defunct" id="The_Joyous_Defunct"></a>The Joyous Defunct</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Where snails abound&mdash;in a juicy soil,<br />
+I will dig for myself a fathomless grave,<br />
+Where at leisure mine ancient bones I can coil,<br />
+And sleep&mdash;quite forgotten&mdash;like a shark 'neath the wave.<br />
+<br />
+I hate every tomb&mdash;I abominate wills,<br />
+And rather than tears from the world to implore,<br />
+I would ask of the crows with their vampire bills<br />
+To devour every bit of my carcass impure.<br />
+<br />
+Oh worms, without eyes, without ears, black friends!<br />
+To you a defunct-one, rejoicing, descends,<br />
+Enlivened Philosophers&mdash;offspring of Dung!<br />
+<br />
+Without any qualms, o'er my wreckage spread,<br />
+And tell if some torment there still can be wrung<br />
+For this soul-less old frame that is dead 'midst the dead!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Broken_Bell" id="The_Broken_Bell"></a>The Broken Bell</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+How sweet and bitter, on a winter night,<br />
+Beside the palpitating fire to list,<br />
+As, slowly, distant memories alight,<br />
+To sounds of chimes that sing across the mist.<br />
+<br />
+Oh, happy is that bell with hearty throat,<br />
+Which neither age nor time can e'er defeat,<br />
+Which faithfully uplifts its pious note,<br />
+Like an agèd soldier on his beat.<br />
+<br />
+For me, my soul is cracked, and 'mid her cares,<br />
+Would often fill with her songs the midnight airs<br />
+And oft it chances that her feeble moan<br />
+<br />
+Is like the wounded warrior's fainting groan,<br />
+Who by a lake of blood, 'neath bodies slain,<br />
+In anguish falls, and never moves again.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Spleen" id="Spleen"></a>Spleen</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+The rainy moon of all the world is weary,<br />
+And from its urn a gloomy cold pours down,<br />
+Upon the pallid inmates of the mortuary,<br />
+And on the neighbouring outskirts of the town.<br />
+<br />
+My wasted cat, in searching for a litter,<br />
+Bestirs its mangy paws from post to post;<br />
+(A poet's soul that wanders in the gutter,<br />
+With the jaded voice of a shiv'ring ghost).<br />
+<br />
+The smoking pine-log, while the drone laments,<br />
+Accompanies the wheezy pendulum,<br />
+The while amidst a haze of dirty scents,<br />
+<br />
+&mdash;Those fatal remnants of a sick man's room&mdash;<br />
+The gallant knave of hearts and queen of spades<br />
+Relate their ancient amorous escapades.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Obsession" id="Obsession"></a>Obsession</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Great forests, you alarm me like a mighty fane;<br />
+Like organ-tones you roar, and in our hearts of stone,<br />
+Where ancient sobs vibrate, O halls of endless pain!<br />
+The answering echoes of your "De Profundis" moan.<br />
+<br />
+I hate thee, Ocean! hate thy tumults and thy throbs,<br />
+My spirit finds them in himself. This bitter glee<br />
+Of vanquished mortals, full of insults and of sobs,<br />
+I hear it in the mighteous laughter of the sea.<br />
+<br />
+O starless night! thy loveliness my soul inhales,<br />
+Without those starry rays which speak a language known,<br />
+For I desire the dark, the naked and the lone.<br />
+<br />
+But e'en those darknesses themselves to me are veils,<br />
+Where live&mdash;and, by the millions 'neath my eyelids prance,<br />
+Long, long departed Beings with familiar glance.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Magnetic_Horror" id="Magnetic_Horror"></a>Magnetic Horror</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+"Beneath this sky, so livid and strange,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tormented like thy destiny,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">What thoughts within thy spirit range</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Themselves?&mdash;O libertine reply."</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">&mdash;With vain desires, for ever torn</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Towards the uncertain, and the vast,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And yet, like Ovid&mdash;I'll not mourn&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Who from his Roman Heaven was cast.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">O heavens, turbulent as the streams,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">In you I mirror forth my pride!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Your clouds, which clad in mourning, glide,</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Are the hearses of my dreams,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And in your illusion lies the hell,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wherein my heart delights to dwell.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Lid" id="The_Lid"></a>The Lid</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Where'er he may rove, upon sea or on land,<br />
+'Neath a fiery sky or a pallid sun,<br />
+Be he Christian or one of Cythera's band,<br />
+Opulent Croesus or beggar&mdash;'tis one,<br />
+<br />
+Whether citizen, peasant or vagabond he,<br />
+Be his little brain active or dull. Everywhere,<br />
+Man feels the terror of mystery,<br />
+And looks upon high with a glance full of fear.<br />
+<br />
+The Heaven above, that oppressive wall;<br />
+A ceiling lit up in some lewd music hall,<br />
+Where the actors step forth on a blood-red soil;<br />
+<br />
+The eremite's hope, and the dread of the sot,<br />
+The Sky; that black lid of a mighty pot,<br />
+Where, vast and minute, human Races boil.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Berthas_Eyes" id="Berthas_Eyes"></a>Bertha's Eyes</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+The loveliest eyes you can scorn with your wondrous glow:<br />
+O! beautiful childish eyes there abounds in your light,<br />
+A something unspeakably tender and good as the night:<br />
+O! eyes! over me your enchanting darkness let flow.<br />
+<br />
+Large eyes of my child! O Arcana profoundly adored!<br />
+Ye resemble so closely those caves in the magical creek;<br />
+Where within the deep slumbering shade of some petrified peak,<br />
+There shines, undiscovered, the gems of a dazzling hoard.<br />
+<br />
+My child has got eyes so profound and so dark and so vast,<br />
+Like thee! oh unending Night, and thy mystical shine:<br />
+Their flames are those thoughts that with Love and with Faith combine,<br />
+And sparkle deep down in the depths so alluring or chaste.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Set_of_the_Romantic_Sun" id="The_Set_of_the_Romantic_Sun"></a>The Set of the Romantic Sun</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+How beauteous the sun as it rises supreme,<br />
+Like an explosion that greets us from above,<br />
+Oh, happy is he that can hail with love,<br />
+Its decline, more glorious far, than a dream.<br />
+<br />
+I saw flower, furrow, and brook.... I recall<br />
+How they swooned like a tremulous heart 'neath the sun,<br />
+Let us haste to the sky-line, 'tis late, let us run,<br />
+At least to catch one slanting ray ere it fall.<br />
+<br />
+But the god, who eludes me, I chase all in vain,<br />
+The night, irresistible, plants its domain,<br />
+Black mists and vague shivers of death it forbodes;<br />
+<br />
+While an odour of graves through the darkness spreads,<br />
+And on the swamp's margin, my timid foot treads<br />
+Upon slimy snails, and on unseen toads.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Meditation" id="Meditation"></a>Meditation</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Be wise, O my Woe, seek thy grievance to drown,<br />
+Thou didst call for the night, and behold it is here,<br />
+An atmosphere sombre, envelopes the town,<br />
+To some bringing peace and to others a care.<br />
+<br />
+Whilst the manifold souls of the vile multitude,<br />
+'Neath the lash of enjoyment, that merciless sway,<br />
+Go plucking remorse from the menial brood,<br />
+From them far, O my grief, hold my hand, come this way.<br />
+<br />
+Behold how they beckon, those years, long expired,<br />
+From Heaven, in faded apparel attired,<br />
+How Regret, smiling, foams on the waters like yeast;<br />
+<br />
+Its arches of slumber the dying sun spreads,<br />
+And like a long winding-sheet dragged to the East,<br />
+Oh, hearken Beloved, how the Night softly treads!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="To_a_Passer-by" id="To_a_Passer-by"></a>To a Passer-by</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Around me thundered the deafening noise of the street,<br />
+In mourning apparel, portraying majestic distress,<br />
+With queenly fingers, just lifting the hem of her dress,<br />
+A stately woman passed by with hurrying feet.<br />
+<br />
+Agile and noble, with limbs of perfect poise,<br />
+Ah, how I drank, thrilled through like a Being insane,<br />
+In her look, a dark sky, from whence springs forth the hurricane,<br />
+There lay but the sweetness that charms, and the joy that destroys.<br />
+<br />
+A flash&mdash;then the night.... O loveliness fugitive!<br />
+Whose glance has so suddenly caused me again to live,<br />
+Shall I not see you again till this life is o'er!<br />
+<br />
+Elsewhere, far away ... too late, perhaps never more,<br />
+For I know not whither you fly, nor you, where I go,<br />
+O soul that I would have loved, and <i>that</i> you know!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Illusionary_Love" id="Illusionary_Love"></a>Illusionary Love</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+When I behold thee wander by, my languorous love,<br />
+To songs of viols which throughout the dome resound,<br />
+Harmonious and stately as thy footsteps move,<br />
+Bestowing forth the languor of thy glance profound.<br />
+<br />
+When I regard thee, glowing in the gaslight rays,<br />
+Thy pallid brow embellished by a charm obscure,<br />
+Here where the evening torches light the twilight haze,<br />
+Thine eyes attracting me like those of a portraiture,<br />
+<br />
+I say&mdash;How beautiful she is! how strangely rich!<br />
+A mighty memory, royal and commanding tower,<br />
+A garland: and her heart, bruised like a ruddy peach,<br />
+Is ripe&mdash;like her body for Love's sapient power.<br />
+<br />
+Art thou, that spicy Autumn-fruit with taste supreme?<br />
+Art thou a funeral vase inviting tears of grief?<br />
+Aroma&mdash;causing one of Eastern wastes to dream;<br />
+A downy cushion, bunch of flowers or golden sheaf?<br />
+<br />
+I know that there are eyes, most melancholy ones,<br />
+Wherein no precious secret deeply hidden lies,<br />
+Resplendent shrines, devoid of relics, sacred stones,<br />
+More empty, more profound than ye yourselves, O skies?<br />
+<br />
+Yea, does thy semblance, not alone for me suffice,<br />
+To kindle senses which the cruel truth abhor?<br />
+All one to me! thy folly or thy heart of ice,<br />
+Decoy or mask, all hail! thy beauty I adore!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Mists_and_Rains" id="Mists_and_Rains"></a>Mists and Rains</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+O last of Autumn and Winter&mdash;steeped in haze,<br />
+O sleepy seasons! you I love and praise,<br />
+Because around my heart and brain you twine<br />
+A misty winding-sheet and a nebulous shrine.<br />
+<br />
+On that great plain, where frigid blasts abound,<br />
+Where through the nights, so long, the vane whirls round,<br />
+My soul, more free than in the springtime soft,<br />
+Will stretch her raven wings and soar aloft,<br />
+<br />
+Unto an heart with gloomy things replete,<br />
+On which remain the frosts of former Times,<br />
+O pallid seasons, mistress of our climes<br />
+<br />
+As your pale shadows&mdash;nothing is so sweet,<br />
+Unless it be, on a moonless night a-twain,<br />
+On some chance couch to soothe to sleep our Pain.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Wine_of_Lovers" id="The_Wine_of_Lovers"></a>The Wine of Lovers</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+To-day the Distance is superb,<br />
+Without bridle, spur or curb,<br />
+Let us mount on the back of wine<br />
+For Regions fairy and divine!<br />
+<br />
+Let's, like two angels tortured by<br />
+Some dark, delirious phantasy,<br />
+Pursue the distant mirage drawn<br />
+O'er the blue crystal of the dawn!<br />
+<br />
+And gently balanced on the wing<br />
+Of some obliging whirlwind, we<br />
+&mdash;In equal rapture revelling&mdash;<br />
+<br />
+My sister, side by side will flee,<br />
+Without repose, nor truce, where gleams<br />
+The golden Paradise of my dreams!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="Condemned_Women" id="Condemned_Women"></a>Condemned Women</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+Like thoughtful cattle on the yellow sands reclined,<br />
+They turn their eyes towards the horizon of the sea,<br />
+Their feet towards each other stretched, their hands entwined,<br />
+They tell of gentle yearning, frigid misery.<br />
+<br />
+A few, with heart-confiding faith of old, imbued<br />
+Amid the darkling grove, where silver streamlets flow,<br />
+Unfold to each their loves of tender infanthood,<br />
+And carve the verdant stems of the vine-kissed portico.<br />
+<br />
+And others like unto nuns with footsteps slow and grave,<br />
+Ascend the hallowed rocks of ancient mystic lore,<br />
+Where long ago&mdash;St. Anthony, like a surging wave,<br />
+The naked purpled breasts of his temptation saw.<br />
+<br />
+And still some more, that 'neath the shimmering masses stroll,<br />
+Among the silent chasm of some pagan caves,<br />
+To soothe their burning fevers unto thee they call<br />
+O Bacchus! who all ancient wounds and sorrow laves.<br />
+<br />
+And others again, whose necks in scapulars delight,<br />
+Who hide a whip beneath their garments secretly,<br />
+Commingling, in the sombre wood and lonesome night,<br />
+The foam of torments and of tears with ecstasy.<br />
+<br />
+O virgins, demons, monsters, and O martyred brood!<br />
+Great souls that mock Reality with remorseless sneers,<br />
+O saints and satyrs, searchers for infinitude!<br />
+At times so full of shouts, at times so full of tears!<br />
+<br />
+You, to whom within your hell my spirit flies,<br />
+Poor sisters&mdash;yea, I love you as I pity you,<br />
+For your unsatiated thirsts and anguished sighs,<br />
+And for the vials of love within your hearts so true.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Death_of_the_Lovers" id="The_Death_of_the_Lovers"></a>The Death of the Lovers</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+We will have beds which exhale odours soft,<br />
+We will have divans profound as the tomb,<br />
+And delicate plants on the ledges aloft,<br />
+Which under the bluest of skies for us bloom.<br />
+<br />
+Exhausting our hearts to their last desires,<br />
+They both shall be like unto two glowing coals,<br />
+Reflecting the twofold light of their fires<br />
+Across the twin mirrors of our two souls.<br />
+<br />
+One evening of mystical azure skies,<br />
+We'll exchange but one single lightning flash,<br />
+Just like a long sob&mdash;replete with good byes.<br />
+<br />
+And later an angel shall joyously pass<br />
+Through the half-open doors, to replenish and wash<br />
+The torches expired, and the tarnished glass.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<h3><a name="The_Death_of_the_Poor" id="The_Death_of_the_Poor"></a>The Death of the Poor</h3>
+
+
+<p class="margin-b">
+It is Death that consoles&mdash;yea, and causes our lives;<br />
+'Tis the goal of this Life&mdash;and of Hope the sole ray,<br />
+Which like a strong potion enlivens and gives<br />
+Us the strength to plod on to the end of the day.<br />
+<br />
+And all through the tempest, the frost and the snows,<br />
+'Tis the shimmering light on our black sky-line;<br />
+'Tis the famous inn which the guide-book shows,<br />
+Whereat one can eat, and sleep, and recline;<br />
+<br />
+'Tis an angel that holds in his magic hands<br />
+The sleep, which ecstatic dream commands,<br />
+Who remakes up the beds of the naked and poor;<br />
+<br />
+'Tis the fame of the gods, 'tis the granary blest,<br />
+'Tis the purse of the poor, and his birth-place of rest,<br />
+To the unknown Heavens, 'tis the wide-open door.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 95%;" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Flowers of Evil, by Charles Baudelaire
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Flowers of Evil, by Charles Baudelaire
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Flowers of Evil
+
+Author: Charles Baudelaire
+
+Translator: Cyril Scott
+
+Release Date: May 13, 2011 [EBook #36098]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWERS OF EVIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrea Ball and Marc D'Hooghe at
+http://www.freeliterature.org (From images generously made
+available by the Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FLOWERS OF EVIL
+
+by
+
+CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
+
+
+TRANSLATED INTO
+
+ENGLISH  VERSE
+
+
+BY
+
+CYRIL SCOTT
+
+
+LONDON
+
+ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET
+
+M CM IX
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATED TO ARTHUR SYMONS
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+  Benediction
+  Echoes
+  The Sick Muse
+  The Venal Muse
+  The Evil Monk
+  The Enemy
+  Ill-Luck
+  Interior Life
+  Man and the Sea
+  Beauty
+  The Ideal
+  The Giantess
+  Hymn to Beauty
+  Exotic Perfume
+  La Chevelure
+  Sonnet XXVIII
+  Posthumous Remorse
+  The Balcony
+  The Possessed One
+  Semper Eadem
+  All Entire
+  Sonnet XLIII
+  The Living Torch
+  The Spiritual Dawn
+  Evening Harmony
+  Overcast Sky
+  Invitation to a Journey
+  "Causerie"
+  Autumn Song
+  Sisina
+  To a Creolean Lady
+  Moesta et Errabunda
+  The Ghost
+  Autumn Song
+  Sadness of the Moon-Goddess
+  Cats
+  Owls
+  Music
+  The Joyous Defunct
+  The Broken Bell
+  Spleen
+  Obsession
+  Magnetic Horror
+  The Lid
+  Bertha's Eyes
+  The Set of the Romantic Sun
+  Meditation
+  To a Passer-by
+  Illusionary Love
+  Mists and Rains
+  The Wine of Lovers
+  Condemned Women
+  The Death of the Lovers
+  The Death of the Poor
+
+
+
+
+   Benediction
+
+
+    When by the changeless Power of a Supreme Decree
+    The poet issues forth upon this sorry sphere,
+    His mother, horrified, and full of blasphemy,
+    Uplifts her voice to God, who takes compassion on her.
+
+   "Ah, why did I not bear a serpent's nest entire,
+    Instead of bringing forth this hideous Child of Doom!
+    Oh cursed be that transient night of vain desire
+    When I conceived my expiation in my womb!"
+
+   "Yet since among all women thou hast chosen me
+    To be the degradation of my jaded mate,
+    And since I cannot like a love-leaf wantonly
+    Consign this stunted monster to the glowing grate,"
+
+   "I'll cause thine overwhelming hatred to rebound
+    Upon the cursed tool of thy most wicked spite.
+    Forsooth, the branches of this wretched tree I'll wound
+    And rob its pestilential blossoms of their might!"
+
+    So thus, she giveth vent unto her foaming ire,
+    And knowing not the changeless statutes of all times,
+    Herself, amid the flames of hell, prepares the pyre;
+    The consecrated penance of maternal crimes.
+
+    Yet 'neath th' invisible shelter of an Angel's wing
+    This sunlight-loving infant disinherited,
+    Exhales from all he eats and drinks, and everything
+    The ever sweet ambrosia and the nectar red.
+
+    He trifles with the winds and with the clouds that glide,
+    About the way unto the Cross, he loves to sing,
+    The spirit on his pilgrimage; that faithful guide,
+    Oft weeps to see him joyful like a bird of Spring.
+
+    All those that he would cherish shrink from him with fear,
+    And some that waxen bold by his tranquility,
+    Endeavour hard some grievance from his heart to tear,
+    And make on him the trial of their ferocity.
+
+    Within the bread and wine outspread for his repast
+    To mingle dust and dirty spittle they essay,
+    And everything he touches, forth they slyly cast,
+    Or scourge themselves, if e'er their feet betrod his way.
+
+    His wife goes round proclaiming in the crowded quads--
+   "Since he can find my body beauteous to behold,
+    Why not perform the office of those ancient gods
+    And like unto them, redeck myself with shining gold?"
+
+   "I'll bathe myself with incense, spikenard and myrrh,
+    With genuflexions, delicate viandes and wine,
+    To see, in jest, if from a heart, that loves me dear,
+    I cannot filch away the hommages divine."
+
+   "And when of these impious jokes at length I tire,
+    My frail but mighty hands, around his breast entwined,
+    With nails, like harpies' nails, shall cunningly conspire
+    The hidden path unto his feeble heart to find."
+
+   "And like a youngling bird that trembles in its nest,
+    I'll pluck his heart right out; within its own blood drowned,
+    And finally to satiate my favourite beast,
+    I'll throw it with intense disdain upon the ground!"
+
+    Towards the Heavens where he sees the sacred grail
+    The poet calmly stretches forth his pious arms,
+    Whereon the lightenings from his lucid spirit veil
+    The sight of the infuriated mob that swarms.
+
+   "Oh blest be thou, Almighty who bestowest pain,
+    Like some divine redress for our infirmities,
+    And like the most refreshing and the purest rain,
+    To sanctify the strong, for saintly ecstasies."
+
+   "I know that for the poet thou wilt grant a chair,
+    Among the Sainted Legion and the Blissful ones,
+    That of the endless feast thou wilt accord his share
+    To him, of Virtues, Dominations and of Thrones."
+
+   "I know, that Sorrow is that nobleness alone,
+    Which never may corrupted be by hell nor curse,
+    I know, in order to enwreathe my mystic crown
+    I must inspire the ages and the universe."
+
+   "And yet the buried jewels of Palmyra old,
+    The undiscovered metals and the pearly sea
+    Of gems, that unto me you show could never hold
+    Beside this diadem of blinding brilliancy."
+
+   "For it shall be engendered from the purest fire
+    Of rays primeval, from the holy hearth amassed,
+    Of which the eyes of Mortals, in their sheen entire,
+    Are but the tarnished mirrors, sad and overcast!"
+
+
+
+
+   Echoes
+
+
+   In Nature's temple, living columns rise,
+   Which oftentimes give tongue to words subdued,
+   And Man traverses this symbolic wood,
+   Which looks at him with half familiar eyes,
+
+   Like lingering echoes, which afar confound
+   Themselves in deep and sombre unity,
+   As vast as Night, and like transplendency,
+   The scents and colours to each other respond.
+
+   And scents there are, like infant's flesh as chaste,
+   As sweet as oboes, and as meadows fair,
+   And others, proud, corrupted, rich and vast,
+
+   Which have the expansion of infinity,
+   Like amber, musk and frankincense and myrrh,
+   That sing the soul's and senses' ecstasy.
+
+
+
+
+   The Sick Muse
+
+
+   Alas--my poor Muse--what aileth thee now?
+   Thine eyes are bedimmed with the visions of Night,
+   And silent and cold--I perceive on thy brow
+   In their turns--Despair and Madness alight.
+
+   A succubus green, or a hobgoblin red,
+   Has it poured o'er thee Horror and Love from its urn?
+   Or the Nightmare with masterful bearing hath led
+   Thee to drown in the depths of some magic Minturne?
+
+   I wish, as the health-giving fragrance I cull,
+   That thy breast with strong thoughts could for ever be full,
+   And that rhymthmic'ly flowing--thy Christian blood
+
+   Could resemble the olden-time metrical-flood,
+   Where each in his turn reigned the father of Rhymes
+   Phoebus--and Pan, lord of Harvest-times.
+
+
+
+
+   The Venal Muse
+
+
+   Oh Muse of my heart--so fond of palaces old,
+   Wilt have--when New Year speeds its wintry blast,
+   Amid those tedious nights, with snow o'ercast,
+   A log to warm thy feet, benumbed with cold?
+
+   Wilt thou thy marbled shoulders then revive
+   With nightly rays that through thy shutters peep?
+   And--void thy purse and void thy palace--reap
+   A golden hoard within some azure hive?
+
+   Thou must, to earn thy daily bread, each night,
+   Suspend the censer like an acolyte,
+   Te-Deums sing, with sanctimonious ease,
+
+   Or as a famished mountebank, with jokes obscene
+   Essay to lull the vulgar rabble's spleen;
+   Thy laughter soaked in tears which no one sees.
+
+
+
+
+   The Evil Monk
+
+
+   The cloisters old, expounded on their walls
+   With paintings, the Beatic Verity,
+   The which--adorning their religious halls,
+   Enriched the frigidness of their Austerity.
+
+   In days when Christian seeds bloomed o'er the land,
+   Full many a noble monk unknown to-day,
+   Upon the field of tombs would take his stand,
+   Exalting Death in rude and simple way.
+
+   My soul is a tomb where--bad monk that I be--
+   I dwell and search its depths from all eternity,
+   And nought bedecks the walls of the odious spot.
+
+   Oh sluggard monk! when shall I glean aright
+   From the living spectacle of my bitter lot,
+   To mold my handywork and mine eyes' Delight?
+
+
+
+
+   The Enemy
+
+
+   My childhood was nought but a ravaging storm,
+   Enlivened at times by a brilliant sun;
+   The rain and the winds wrought such havoc and harm
+   That of buds on my plot there remains hardly one.
+
+   Behold now the Fall of ideas I have reached,
+   And the shovel and rake one must therefore resume,
+   In collecting the turf, inundated and breached,
+   Where the waters dug trenches as deep as a tomb.
+
+   And yet these new blossoms, for which I craved,
+   Will they find in this earth--like a shore that is laved--
+   The mystical fuel which vigour imparts?
+
+   Oh misery!--Time devours our lives,
+   And the enemy black, which consumeth our hearts
+   On the blood of our bodies, increases and thrives!
+
+
+
+
+   Ill Luck
+
+
+   This heavy burden to uplift,
+   O Sysiphus, thy pluck is required!
+   And even though the heart aspired,
+   Art is long and Time is swift.
+
+   Afar from sepulchres renowned,
+   To a graveyard, quite apart,
+   Like a broken drum, my heart,
+   Beats the funeral marches' sound.
+
+   Many a buried jewel sleeps
+   In the long-forgotten deeps,
+   Far from mattock and from sound;
+
+   Many a flower wafts aloft
+   Its perfumes, like a secret soft,
+   Within the solitudes, profound.
+
+
+
+
+   Interior Life
+
+
+   A long while I dwelt beneath vast porticoes,
+   While the ocean-suns bathed with a thousand fires,
+   And which with their great and majestic spires,
+   At eventide looked like basaltic grottoes.
+
+   The billows, in rolling depictured the skies,
+   And mingled, in solemn and mystical strain,
+   The all-mighteous chords of their luscious refrain
+   With the sun-set's colours reflexed in mine eyes.
+
+   It is there that I lived in exalted calm,
+   In the midst of the azure, the splendour, the waves,
+   While pregnant with perfumes, naked slaves
+
+   Refreshed my forehead with branches of palm,
+   Whose gentle and only care was to know
+   The secret that caused me to languish so.
+
+
+
+
+   Man and the Sea
+
+
+   Free man! the sea is to thee ever dear!
+   The sea is thy mirror, thou regardest thy soul
+   In its mighteous waves that unendingly roll,
+   And thy spirit is yet not a chasm less drear.
+
+   Thou delight'st to plunge deep in thine image down;
+   Thou tak'st it with eyes and with arms in embrace,
+   And at times thine own inward voice would'st efface
+   With the sound of its savage ungovernable moan.
+
+   You are both of you, sombre, secretive and deep:
+   Oh mortal, thy depths are foraye unexplored,
+   Oh sea--no one knoweth thy dazzling hoard,
+   You both are so jealous your secrets to keep!
+
+   And endless ages have wandered by,
+   Yet still without pity or mercy you fight,
+   So mighty in plunder and death your delight:
+   Oh wrestlers! so constant in enmity!
+
+
+
+
+   Beauty
+
+
+   I am lovely, O mortals, like a dream of stone,
+   And my bosom, where each one gets bruised in turn,
+   To inspire the love of a poet is prone,
+   Like matter eternally silent and stern.
+
+   As an unfathomed sphinx, enthroned by the Nile,
+   My heart a swan's whiteness with granite combines,
+   And I hate every movement, displacing the lines,
+   And never I weep and never I smile.
+
+   The poets in front of mine attitudes fine
+   (Which the proudest of monuments seem to implant),
+   To studies profound all their moments assign,
+
+   For I have all these docile swains to enchant--
+   Two mirrors, which Beauty in all things ignite:
+   Mine eyes, my large eyes, of eternal Light!
+
+
+
+
+   The Ideal
+
+
+   It could ne'er be those beauties of ivory vignettes;
+   The varied display of a worthless age,
+   Nor puppet-like figures with castonets,
+   That ever an heart like mine could engage.
+
+   I leave to Gavarni, that poet of chlorosis,
+   His hospital-beauties in troups that whirl,
+   For I cannot discover amid his pale roses
+   A flower to resemble my scarlet ideal.
+
+   Since, what for this fathomless heart I require
+   Is--Lady Macbeth you! in crime so dire;
+   --An AEschylus dream transposed from the South--
+
+   Or thee, oh great "Night" of Michael-Angelo born,
+   Who so calmly thy limbs in strange posture hath drawn,
+   Whose allurements are framed for a Titan's mouth.
+
+
+
+
+   The Giantess
+
+
+   I should have loved--erewhile when Heaven conceived
+   Each day, some child abnormal and obscene,
+   Beside a maiden giantess to have lived,
+   Like a luxurious cat at the feet of a queen;
+
+   To see her body flowering with her soul,
+   And grow, unchained, in awe-inspiring art,
+   Within the mists across her eyes that stole
+   To divine the fires entombed within her heart.
+
+   And oft to scramble o'er her mighty limbs,
+   And climb the slopes of her enormous knees,
+   Or in summer when the scorching sunlight streams
+
+   Across the country, to recline at ease,
+   And slumber in the shadow of her breast
+   Like an hamlet 'neath the mountain-crest.
+
+
+
+
+   Hymn to Beauty
+
+
+   O Beauty! dost thou generate from Heaven or from Hell?
+   Within thy glance, so diabolic and divine,
+   Confusedly both wickedness and goodness dwell,
+   And hence one might compare thee unto sparkling wine.
+
+   Thy look containeth both the dawn and sunset stars,
+   Thy perfumes, as upon a sultry night exhale,
+   Thy kiss a philter, and thy mouth a Grecian vase,
+   That renders heroes cowardly and infants hale.
+
+   Yea, art thou from the planets, or the fiery womb?
+   The demon follows in thy train, with magic fraught,
+   Thou scatter'st seeds haphazardly of joy and doom,
+   Thou govern'st everything, but answer'st unto nought.
+
+   O Loveliness! thou spurnest corpses with delight,
+   Among thy jewels, Horror hath such charms for thee,
+   And Murder 'mid thy mostly cherished trinklets bright,
+   Upon thy massive bosom dances amorously.
+
+   The blinded, fluttering moth towards the candle flies,
+   Then frizzles, falls, and falters--"Blessings unto thee"--
+   The panting swain that o'er his beauteous mistress sighs,
+   Seems like the Sick, that stroke their gravestones lovingly.
+
+   What matter, if thou comest from the Heavens or Hell,
+   O Beauty, frightful ghoul, ingenuous and obscure!
+   So long thine eyes, thy smile, to me the way can tell
+   Towards that Infinite I love, but never saw.
+
+   From God or Satan? Angel, Mermaid, Proserpine?
+   What matter if thou makest--blithe, voluptuous sprite--
+   With rhythms, perfumes, visions--O mine only queen!--
+   The universe less hideous and the hours less trite.
+
+
+
+
+   Exotic Perfume
+
+
+   When, with closed eyes, on a hot afternoon,
+   The scent of thine ardent breast I inhale,
+   Celestial vistas my spirit assail;
+   Caressed by the flames of an endless sun.
+
+   A langorous island, where Nature abounds
+   With exotic trees and luscious fruit;
+   And with men whose bodies are slim and astute,
+   And with women whose frankness delights and astounds.
+
+   By thy perfume enticed to this region remote,
+   A port I see, laden with mast and with boat,
+   Still wearied and torn by the distant brine;
+
+   While the tamarisk-odours that dreamily throng
+   The air, round my slumberous senses intwine,
+   And mix, in my soul, with the mariners' song.
+
+
+
+
+   La Chevelure
+
+
+   O fleece, that foams down unto the shoulders bare!
+   O curls, O scents which lovely languidness exhale!
+   Delight! to fill this alcove's sombre atmosphere
+   With memories, sleeping deep within this tress of hair,
+   I'll wave it in the evening breezes like a veil!
+
+   The shores of Africa, and Asia's burning skies,
+   A world forgotten, distant, nearly dead and spent,
+   Within thy depths, O aromatic forest! lies.
+   And like to spirits floating unto melodies,
+   Mine own, Beloved! glides within thy sacred scent.
+
+   There I will hasten, where the trees and humankind
+   With languor lull beside the hot and silent sea;
+   Strong tresses bear me, be to me the waves and wind!
+   Within thy fragrance lies a dazzling dream confined
+   Of sails and masts and flames--O lake of ebony!
+
+   A loudly echoing harbour, where my soul may hold
+   To quaff, the silver cup of colours, scents and sounds,
+   Wherein the vessels glide upon a sea of gold,
+   And stretch their mighty arms, the glory to enfold
+   Of virgin skies, where never-ending heat abounds.
+
+   I'll plunge my brow, enamoured with voluptuousness
+   Within this darkling ocean of infinitude,
+   Until my subtle spirit, which thy waves caress,
+   Shall find you once again, O fertile weariness;
+   Unending lullabye of perfumed lassitude!
+
+   Ye tresses blue--recess of strange and sombre shades,
+   Ye make the azure of the starry Realm immense;
+   Upon the downy beeches, by your curls' cascades,
+   Among your mingling fragrances, my spirit wades
+   To cull the musk and cocoa-nut and lotus scents.
+
+   Long--foraye--my hand, within thy heavy mane,
+   Shall scatter rubies, pearls, sapphires eternally,
+   And thus my soul's desire for thee shall never wane;
+   For art not thou the oasis where I dream and drain
+   With draughts profound, the golden wine of memory?
+
+
+
+
+   Sonnet XXVIII
+
+
+   With pearly robes that wave within the wind,
+   Even when she walks, she seems to dance,
+   Like swaying serpents round those wands entwined
+   Which fakirs ware in rhythmic elegance.
+
+   So like the desert's Blue, and the sands remote,
+   Both, deaf to mortal suffering and to strife,
+   Or like the sea-weeds 'neath the waves that float,
+   Indifferently she moulds her budding life.
+
+   Her polished eyes are made of minerals bright,
+   And in her mien, symbolical and cold,
+   Wherein an angel mingles with a sphinx of old,
+
+   Where all is gold, and steel, and gems, and light,
+   There shines, just like a useless star eternally,
+   The sterile woman's frigid majesty.
+
+
+
+
+   Posthumous Remorse
+
+
+   Ah, when thou shalt slumber, my darkling love,
+   Beneath a black marble-made statuette,
+   And when thou'lt have nought for thy house or alcove,
+   But a cavernous den and a damp oubliette.
+
+   When the tomb-stone, oppressing thy timorous breast,
+   And thy hips drooping sweetly with listless decay,
+   The pulse and desires of mine heart shall arrest,
+   And thy feet from pursuing their adventurous way,
+
+   Then the grave, that dark friend of my limitless dreams
+   (For the grave ever readeth the poet aright),
+   Amid those long nights, which no slumber redeems
+
+   'Twill query--"What use to thee, incomplete spright
+   That thou ne'er hast unfathomed the tears of the dead"?--
+   Then the worms will gnaw deep at thy body, like Dread.
+
+
+
+
+   The Balcony
+
+
+   Oh, Mother of Memories! Mistress of Mistresses!
+   Oh, thou all my pleasures, oh, thou all my prayers!
+   Can'st thou remember those luscious caresses,
+   The charm of the hearth and the sweet evening airs?
+   Oh, Mother, of Memories, Mistress of Mistresses!
+
+   Those evenings illumed by the glow of the coal,
+   And those roseate nights with their vaporous wings,
+   How calm was thy breast and how good was thy soul,
+   'Twas then we uttered imperishable things,
+   Those evenings illumed by the glow of the coal.
+
+   How lovely the suns on those hot, autumn nights!
+   How vast were the heavens! and the heart how hale!
+   As I leaned towards you--oh, my Queen of Delights,
+   The scent of thy blood I seemed to inhale.
+   How lovely the sun on those hot, autumn nights!
+
+   The shadows of night-time grew dense like a pall,
+   And deep through the darkness thine eyes I divined,
+   And I drank of thy breath--oh sweetness, oh gall,
+   And thy feet in my brotherly hands reclined,
+   The shadows of Night-time grew dense like a pall.
+
+   I know how to call forth those moments so dear,
+   And to live my Past--laid on thy knees--once more,
+   For where should I seek for thy beauties but here
+   In thy langorous heart and thy body so pure?
+   I know how to call forth those moments so dear.
+
+   Those perfumes, those infinite kisses and sighs,
+   Are they born in some gulf to our plummets denied?
+   Like rejuvenate suns that mount up to the skies,
+   That first have been cleansed in the depths of the tide;
+   Oh, perfumes! oh, infinite kisses and sighs!
+
+
+
+
+   The Possessed One
+
+
+   The sun is enveloped in crape! like it,
+   O Moon of my Life! wrap thyself up in shade;
+   At will, smoke or slumber, be silent, be staid,
+   And dive deep down in Dispassion's dark pit.
+
+   I cherish thee thus! But if 'tis thy mood,
+   Like a star that from out its penumbra appears,
+   To float in the regions where madness careers,
+   Fair dagger! burst forth from thy sheath! 'tis good.
+
+   Yea, light up thine eyes at the Fire of Renown!
+   Or kindle desire by the looks of some clown!
+   Thine All is my joy, whether dull or aflame!
+
+   Just be what thou wilt, black night, dawn divine,
+   There is not a nerve in my trembling frame
+   But cries, "I adore thee, Beelzebub mine!"
+
+
+
+
+   Semper Eadem
+
+
+   "From whence it comes, you ask, this gloom acute,
+   Like waves that o'er the rocky headland fall?"
+   --When once our hearts have gathered in their fruit,
+   To live is a curse! a secret known to all,
+
+   A grief, quite simple, nought mysterious,
+   And like your joy--for all, both loud and shrill,
+   Nay cease to clamour, be not e'er so curious!
+   And yet although your voice is sweet, be still!
+
+   Be still, O soul, with rapture ever rife!
+   O mouth, with the childish smile! Far more than Life,
+   The subtle bonds of Death around us twine.
+
+   Let--let my heart, the wine of falsehood drink,
+   And dream-like, deep within your fair eyes sink,
+   And in the shade of thy lashes long recline!
+
+
+
+
+   All Entire
+
+
+    The Demon, in my lofty vault,
+    This morning came to visit me,
+    And striving me to find at fault,
+    He said, "Fain would I know of thee;
+
+   "Among the many beauteous things,
+    --All which _her_ subtle grace proclaim--
+    Among the dark and rosy things,
+    Which go to make her charming frame,
+
+   "Which is the sweetest unto thee"?
+    My soul! to Him thou didst retort--
+   "Since all with her is destiny,
+    Of preference there can be nought.
+
+    When all transports me with delight,
+    If aught deludes I can not know,
+    She either lulls one like the Night,
+    Or dazzles like the Morning-glow.
+
+    That harmony is too divine,
+    Which governs all her body fair,
+    For powerless mortals to define
+    In notes the many concords there.
+
+    O mystic metamorphosis
+    Of all my senses blent in one!
+    Her voice a beauteous perfume is,
+    Her breath makes music, chaste and wan.
+
+
+
+
+   Sonnet XLIII
+
+
+   What sayest thou, to-night, poor soul so drear,
+   What sayest--heart erewhile engulfed in gloom,
+   To the very lovely, very chaste, and very dear,
+   Whose god-like look hath made thee to re-bloom?
+
+   To her, with pride we chant an echoing Hymn,
+   For nought can touch the sweetness of her sway;
+   Her flesh ethereal as the seraphim,
+   Her eyes with robe of light our souls array.
+
+   And be it in the night, or solitude,
+   Among the streets or 'mid the multitude,
+   Her shadow, torch-like, dances in the air,
+
+   And murmurs, "I, the Beautiful proclaim--
+   That for my sake, alone ye love the Fair;
+   I am the Guardian Angel, Muse and Dame!"
+
+
+
+
+   The Living Torch
+
+
+   They stand before me now, those eyes that shine,
+   No doubt inspired by an Angel wise;
+   They stand, those God-like brothers that are mine,
+   And pour their diamond fires in mine eyes.
+
+   From all transgressions, from all snares, they save,
+   Towards the Path of Joy they guide my ways;
+   They are my servants, and I am their slave;
+   And all my soul, this living torch obeys.
+
+   Ye charming Eyes--ye have those mystic beams,
+   Of candles, burning in full day; the sun
+   Awakes, yet kills not their fantastic gleams:
+
+   Ye sing the Awak'ning, they the dark oblivion;
+   The Awak'ning of my spirit ye proclaim,
+   O stars--no sun can ever kill your flame!
+
+
+
+
+   The Spiritual Dawn
+
+
+   When the morning white and rosy breaks,
+   With the gnawing Ideal, upon the debauchee,
+   By the power of a strange decree,
+   Within the sotted beast an Angel wakes.
+
+   The mental Heaven's inaccessible blue,
+   For wearied mortals that still dream and mourn,
+   Expands and sinks; towards the chasm drawn.
+   Thus, cherished goddess, Being pure and true--
+
+   Upon the rests of foolish orgy-nights
+   Thine image, more sublime, more pink, more clear,
+   Before my staring eyes is ever there.
+
+   The sun has darkened all the candle lights;
+   And thus thy spectre like the immortal sun,
+   Is ever victorious--thou resplendent one!
+
+
+
+
+   Evening Harmony
+
+
+   The hour approacheth, when, as their stems incline,
+   The flowers evaporate like an incense urn,
+   And sounds and scents in the vesper breezes turn;
+   A melancholy waltz--and a drowsiness divine.
+
+   The flowers evaporate like an incense urn,
+   The viol vibrates like the wailing of souls that repine.
+   A melancholy waltz--and a drowsiness divine,
+   The skies like a mosque are beautiful and stern.
+
+   The viol vibrates like the wailing of souls that repine;
+   Sweet souls that shrink from chaos vast and etern,
+   The skies like a mosque are beautiful and stern,
+   The sunset drowns within its blood-red brine.
+
+   Sweet souls that shrink from chaos vast and etern,
+   Essay the wreaths of their faded Past to entwine,
+   The sunset drowns within its blood-red brine,
+   Thy thought within me glows like an incense urn.
+
+
+
+
+   Overcast Sky
+
+
+   Meseemeth thy glance, soft enshrouded with dew,
+   Thy mysterious eyes (are they grey, green or blue?),
+   Alternately cruel, and tender, and shy,
+   Reflect both the languor and calm of the sky.
+
+   Thou recallest those white days--with shadows caressed,
+   Engendering tears from th' enraptured breast,
+   When racked by an anguish unfathomed that weeps,
+   The nerves, too awake, jibe the spirit that sleeps.
+
+   At times--thou art like those horizons divine,
+   Where the suns of the nebulous seasons decline;
+   How resplendent art thou--O pasturage vast,
+   Illumed by the beams of a sky overcast!
+
+   O! dangerous dame--oh seductive clime!
+   As well, will I love both thy snow and thy rime,
+   And shall I know how from the frosts to entice
+   Delights that are keener than iron and ice?
+
+
+
+
+   Invitation to a Journey
+
+
+       My sister, my dear
+       Consider how fair,
+   Together to live it would be!
+       Down yonder to fly
+       To love, till we die,
+   In the land which resembles thee.
+       Those suns that rise
+       'Neath erratic skies,
+   --No charm could be like unto theirs--
+       So strange and divine,
+       Like those eyes of thine
+   Which glow in the midst of their tears.
+
+   There, all is order and loveliness,
+   Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.
+
+       The tables and chairs,
+       Polished bright by the years,
+   Would decorate sweetly our rooms,
+       And the rarest of flowers
+       Would twine round our bowers
+   And mingle their amber perfumes:
+       The ceilings arrayed,
+       And the mirrors inlaid,
+   This Eastern splendour among,
+       Would furtively steal
+       O'er our souls, and appeal
+   With its tranquillous native tongue.
+
+   There, all is order and loveliness,
+   Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.
+
+       In the harbours, peep,
+       At the vessels asleep
+   (Their humour is always to roam),
+       Yet it is but to grant
+       Thy smallest want
+   From the ends of the earth that they come,
+       The sunsets beam
+       Upon meadow and stream,
+   And upon the city entire
+       'Neath a violet crest,
+       The world sinks to rest,
+   Illumed by a golden fire.
+
+   There, all is order and loveliness,
+   Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.
+
+
+
+
+   "Causerie"
+
+   You are a roseate autumn-sky, that glows!
+   Yet sadness rises in me like the flood,
+   And leaves in ebbing on my lips morose,
+   The poignant memory of its bitter mind.
+
+   In vain your hands my swooning breast embrace,
+   Oh, friend! alone remains the plundered spot,
+   Where woman's biting grip has left its trace:
+   My heart, the beasts devoured--seek it not!
+
+   My heart is a palace pillaged by the herd;
+   They kill and take each other by the throat!
+   A perfume glides around your bosom bared--
+
+   O loveliness, thou scourge of souls--devote
+   Thine eyes of fire--luminous-like feasts,
+   To burn these rags--rejected by the beasts!
+
+
+
+
+   Autumn Song
+
+
+   I
+
+   Shortly we will plunge within the frigid gloom,
+   Farewell swift summer brightness; all too short--
+   I hear already sounding with a death-like boom
+   The wood that falls upon the pavement of the court.
+
+   The whole of winter enters in my Being--pain,
+   Hate, honor, labour hard and forced--and dread,
+   And like the northern sun upon its polar plane
+   My heart will soon be but a stone, iced and red.
+
+   I listen trembling unto every log that falls,
+   The scaffold, which they build, has not a duller sound,
+   My spirits waver, like the trembling tower walls
+   that shake--with every echoing blow the builders pound.
+
+   Meeseemeth--as to these monotonous blows I sway,
+   They nail for one a coffin lid, or sound a knell--
+   For whom? Autumn now--and summer yesterday!
+   This strange mysterious noise betokens a farewell.
+
+
+   II
+
+   I love within your oblong eyes the verdant rays,
+   My sweet! but bitter everything to-day meseems:
+   And nought--your love, the boudoir, nor the flickering blaze,
+   Can replace the sun that o'er the screen streams.
+
+   And yet bemother and caress me, tender heart!
+   Even me the thankless and the worthless one;
+   Beloved or sister--unto me the sweets impart
+   Of a glorious autumn or a sinking sun.
+
+   Ephemeral task! the beckoning the beckoning empty tomb is set!
+   Oh grant me--as upon your knees my head I lay,
+   (Because the white and torrid summer I regret),
+   To taste the parted season's mild and amber ray.
+
+
+
+
+   Sisina
+
+
+   Imagine Diana in gorgeous array,
+   How into the forests and thickets she flies,
+   With her hair in the breezes, and flushed for the fray,
+   How the very best riders she proudly defies.
+
+   Have you seen Theroigne, of the blood-thirsty heart,
+   As an unshod herd to attack he bestirs,
+   With cheeks all inflamed, playing up to his part,
+   As he goes, sword in hand, up the royal stairs?
+
+   And so is Sisina--yet this warrior sweet,
+   Has a soul with compassion and kindness replete,
+   Inspired by drums and by powder, her sway
+
+   Knows how to concede to the supplicants' prayers,
+   And her bosom, laid waste by the flames, has alway,
+   For those that are worthy, a fountain of tears.
+
+
+
+
+   To a Creolean Lady
+
+
+   In a country perfumed with the sun's embrace,
+   I knew 'neath a dais of purpled palms,
+   And branches where idleness weeps o'er one's face,
+   A Creolean lady of unknown charms.
+
+   Her tint, pale and warm--this bewitching bride,
+   Displays a nobly nurtured mien,
+   Courageous and grand like a huntsman, her stride;
+   A tranquil smile and eyes serene.
+
+   If, madam, you'd go to the true land of gain,
+   By the banks of the verdant Loire or the Seine,
+   How worthy to garnish some pile of renown.
+
+   You'd awake in the calm of some shadowy nest,
+   A thousand songs in the poet's breast,
+   That your eyes would inspire far more than your brown.
+
+
+
+
+   Moesta et Errabunda
+
+
+   Oh, Agatha, tell! does thy heart not at times fly away?
+   Far from the city impure and the lowering sea,
+   To another ocean that blinds with its dazzling array,
+   So blue and so clear and profound, like virginity?
+   Oh, Agatha, tell! does thy heart not at times fly away?
+
+   The sea, the vast ocean our travail and trouble consoles!
+   What demon hath gifted the sea with a voice from on high,
+   To sing us (attuned to an AEolus-organ that rolls
+   Forth a grumbling burden) a lenitive lullabye?
+   The sea, the vast ocean our travail and trouble consoles!
+
+   Oh, carry me, waggons, oh, sailing-ships, help me depart!
+   Far, far, here the dust is quite wet with our showering tears,
+   Oh, say! it is true that Agatha's desolate heart,
+   Proclaimeth, "Away from remorse, and from crimes, and from cares,"
+   Oh, carry me, waggons, oh, sailing ships, help me depart!
+
+   How distant you seem to be, perfumed Elysian fields!
+   Wherein there is nothing but sunshine and love and glee;
+   Where all that one loves is so worthy, and lovingly yields,
+   And our hearts float about in the purest of ecstasy,
+   How distant you seem to be, perfumed Elysian fields!
+
+   But the green paradise of those transient infantile loves,
+   The strolls, and the songs, and the kisses, and bunches of flowers,
+   The viols vibrating beyond, in the mountainous groves,
+   With the chalice of wine and the evening, entwined, in the bowers,
+   But the green paradise of those transient infantile loves.
+
+   That innocent heaven o'erflowing with furtive delight,
+   Than China or India, is it still further away?
+   Or, could one with pityful prayers bring it back to our sight?
+   Or yet with a silvery voice o'er the ages convey
+   That innocent heaven o'erflowing with furtive delight!
+
+
+
+
+   The Ghost
+
+
+   Just like an angel with evil eye,
+   I shall return to thee silently,
+   Upon thy bower I'll alight,
+   With falling shadows of the night.
+
+   With thee, my brownie, I'll commune,
+   And give thee kisses cold as the moon,
+   And with a serpent's moist embrace,
+   I'll crawl around thy resting-place.
+
+   And when the livid morning falls,
+   Thou'lt find alone the empty walls,
+   And till the evening, cold 'twill be.
+
+   As others with their tenderness,
+   Upon thy life and youthfulness,
+   I'll reign alone with dread o'er thee.
+
+
+
+
+   Autumn Song
+
+
+   They ask me--thy crystalline eyes, so acute,
+   "Odd lover--why am I to thee so dear?"
+   --Be sweet and keep silent, my heart, which is sear,
+   For all save the rude and untutored brute,
+
+   Is loth its infernal depths to reveal,
+   And its dissolute motto engraven with fire,
+   Oh charmer! whose arms endless slumber inspire!
+   I abominate passion and wit makes me ill.
+
+   So let us love gently. Within his retreat,
+   Foreboding, Love seeks for his arrows a prey,
+   I know all the arms of his battle array.
+
+   Delirium and loathing--O pale Marguerite!
+   Like me, art thou not an autumnal ray,
+   Alas my so white, my so cold Marguerite!
+
+
+
+
+   Sadness of the Moon-Goddess
+
+
+   To-night the Moon dreams with increased weariness,
+   Like a beauty stretched forth on a downy heap
+   Of rugs, while her languorous fingers caress
+   The contour of her breasts, before falling to sleep.
+
+   On the satin back of the avalanche soft,
+   She falls into lingering swoons, as she dies,
+   While she lifteth her eyes to white visions aloft,
+   Which like efflorescence float up to the skies.
+
+   When at times, in her languor, down on to this sphere,
+   She slyly lets trickle a furtive tear,
+   A poet, desiring slumber to shun,
+
+   Takes up this pale tear in the palm of his hand
+   (The colours of which like an opal blend),
+   And buries it far from the eyes of the sun.
+
+
+
+
+   Cats
+
+
+   All ardent lovers and all sages prize,
+   --As ripening years incline upon their brows--
+   The mild and mighty cats--pride of the house--
+   That like unto them are indolent, stern and wise.
+
+   The friends of Learning and of Ecstasy,
+   They search for silence and the horrors of gloom;
+   The devil had used them for his steeds of Doom,
+   Could he alone have bent their pride to slavery.
+
+   When musing, they display those outlines chaste,
+   Of the great sphinxes--stretched o'er the sandy waste,
+   That seem to slumber deep in a dream without end:
+
+   From out their loins a fountainous furnace flies,
+   And grains of sparkling gold, as fine as sand,
+   Bestar the mystic pupils of their eyes.
+
+
+
+
+   Owls
+
+
+   Beneath the shades of sombre yews,
+   The silent owls sit ranged in rows,
+   Like ancient idols, strangely pose,
+   And darting fiery eyes, they muse.
+
+   Immovable, they sit and gaze,
+   Until the melancholy hour,
+   At which the darknesses devour
+   The faded sunset's slanting rays.
+
+   Their attitude, instructs the wise,
+   That he--within this world--who flies
+   From tumult and from merriment;
+
+   The man allured by a passing face,
+   For ever bears the chastisement
+   Of having wished to change his place.
+
+
+
+
+   Music
+
+
+   Oft Music possesses me like the seas!
+           To my planet pale,
+   'Neath a ceiling of mist, in the lofty breeze,
+           I set my sail.
+
+   With inflated lungs and expanded chest,
+           Like to a sail,
+   On the backs of the heaped-up billows I rest--
+           Which the shadows veil--
+
+   I feel all the anguish within me arise
+           Of a ship in distress;
+   The tempest, the rain, 'neath the lowering skies,
+
+           My body caress;
+   At times, the calm pool or the mirror clear
+           Of my despair!
+
+
+
+
+   The Joyous Defunct
+
+
+   Where snails abound--in a juicy soil,
+   I will dig for myself a fathomless grave,
+   Where at leisure mine ancient bones I can coil,
+   And sleep--quite forgotten--like a shark 'neath the wave.
+
+   I hate every tomb--I abominate wills,
+   And rather than tears from the world to implore,
+   I would ask of the crows with their vampire bills
+   To devour every bit of my carcass impure.
+
+   Oh worms, without eyes, without ears, black friends!
+   To you a defunct-one, rejoicing, descends,
+   Enlivened Philosophers--offspring of Dung!
+
+   Without any qualms, o'er my wreckage spread,
+   And tell if some torment there still can be wrung
+   For this soul-less old frame that is dead 'midst the dead!
+
+
+
+
+   The Broken Bell
+
+
+   How sweet and bitter, on a winter night,
+   Beside the palpitating fire to list,
+   As, slowly, distant memories alight,
+   To sounds of chimes that sing across the mist.
+
+   Oh, happy is that bell with hearty throat,
+   Which neither age nor time can e'er defeat,
+   Which faithfully uplifts its pious note,
+   Like an aged soldier on his beat.
+
+   For me, my soul is cracked, and 'mid her cares,
+   Would often fill with her songs the midnight airs
+   And oft it chances that her feeble moan
+
+   Is like the wounded warrior's fainting groan,
+   Who by a lake of blood, 'neath bodies slain,
+   In anguish falls, and never moves again.
+
+
+
+
+   Spleen
+
+
+   The rainy moon of all the world is weary,
+   And from its urn a gloomy cold pours down,
+   Upon the pallid inmates of the mortuary,
+   And on the neighbouring outskirts of the town.
+
+   My wasted cat, in searching for a litter,
+   Bestirs its mangy paws from post to post;
+   (A poet's soul that wanders in the gutter,
+   With the jaded voice of a shiv'ring ghost).
+
+   The smoking pine-log, while the drone laments,
+   Accompanies the wheezy pendulum,
+   The while 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 fingers, 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,
+   We 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.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Flowers of Evil, by Charles Baudelaire
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