The Flowers of Evil · OmniClassics

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.