The Flowers of Evil
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,