Works: 2022
About Charles Baudelaire's "L´Ennemi" / "The enemy" from "Les Fleurs du mal" / "The Flowers of Evil"
The Enemy
My youth has been nothing but a tenebrous storm,
Pierced now and then by rays of brilliant sunshine;
Thunder and rain have wrought so much havoc
That very few ripe fruits remain in my garden.
I have already reached the autumn of the mind,
And I must set to work with the spade and the rake
To gather back the inundated soil
In which the rain digs holes as big as graves.
And who knows whether the new flowers I dream of
Will find in this earth washed bare like the strand,
The mystic aliment that would give them vigor?
Alas! Alas! Time eats away our lives,
And the hidden Enemy who gnaws at our hearts
Grows by drawing strength from the blood we lose!
About Charles Baudelaire's "La Vie antérieure" / "My former life" from "Les Fleurs du mal" / "The Flowers of Evil"
My former life
For long I lived beneath vast colonnadesTinged with a thousand fires by ocean suns,
Whose giant pillars, straight and majestic,
Made them look, at evening, like basalt caves.
The sea-swells, mingling the mirrored skies,
Solemnly and mystically interwove
The mighty chords of their mellow music
With the colours of sunset reflected in my eyes.
It is there that I have lived in sensuous repose,
With blue sky about me and brightness and waves
And naked slaves all drenched in perfume.
Who fanned my brow with fronds of palm,
And whose only care was to fathom
The secret grief which made me languish.