Works
L'Homme et la mer
Homme libre, toujours tu chériras la mer!
La mer est ton miroir; tu contemples ton âme
Dans le déroulement infini de sa lame,
Et ton esprit n'est pas un gouffre moins amer.
Tu te plais à plonger au sein de ton image;
Tu l'embrasses des yeux et des bras, et ton coeur
Se distrait quelquefois de sa propre rumeur
Au bruit de cette plainte indomptable et sauvage.
Vous êtes tous les deux ténébreux et discrets:
Homme, nul n'a sondé le fond de tes abîmes;
Ô mer, nul ne connaît tes richesses intimes,
Tant vous êtes jaloux de garder vos secrets!
Et cependant voilà des siècles innombrables
Que vous vous combattez sans pitié ni remords,
Tellement vous aimez le carnage et la mort,
Ô lutteurs éternels, ô frères implacables!
— Charles Baudelaire
DER MENSCH UND DAS MEER
Freier mensch! das meer ist dir teuer allzeit ·
Es ist dein Spiegel · das meer · du kannst dich beschauen
In seiner wellen unendlichem rollendem grauen ·
In deinem geist ist ein abgrund nicht minder weit.
Gerne versenkest du dich tief in dein bild ·
Ziehst es an dich mit auge und hand – deine sinne
Halten manchmal im eigenen tosen inne
Bei dem geräusch dieser klage unzähmbar und wild.
Beide lebt ihr in finstrer und heimlicher flucht.
Mensch noch sind unerforscht deine innersten gründe!
Meer noch sind unentdeckt deine kostbarsten Schlünde!
Euer geheimnis bewahrt ihr mit eifersucht.
Und seit unzähligen jahren rollet ihr weiter
Ohne mitleid ohne reuegefühl ·
So sehr liebet ihr blut und totengewühl –
Unversöhnliche brüder! ewige streiter!
Hymne à la Beauté
Viens-tu du ciel profond ou sors-tu de l'abîme,
O Beauté? ton regard, infernal et divin,
Verse confusément le bienfait et le crime,
Et l'on peut pour cela te comparer au vin.
Tu contiens dans ton oeil le couchant et l'aurore;
Tu répands des parfums comme un soir orageux;
Tes baisers sont un philtre et ta bouche une amphore
Qui font le héros lâche et l'enfant courageux.
Sors-tu du gouffre noir ou descends-tu des astres?
Le Destin charmé suit tes jupons comme un chien;
Tu sèmes au hasard la joie et les désastres,
Et tu gouvernes tout et ne réponds de rien.
Tu marches sur des morts, Beauté, dont tu te moques;
De tes bijoux l'Horreur n'est pas le moins charmant,
Et le Meurtre, parmi tes plus chères breloques,
Sur ton ventre orgueilleux danse amoureusement.
L'éphémère ébloui vole vers toi, chandelle,
Crépite, flambe et dit: Bénissons ce flambeau!
L'amoureux pantelant incliné sur sa belle
A l'air d'un moribond caressant son tombeau.
Que tu viennes du ciel ou de l'enfer, qu'importe,
Ô Beauté! monstre énorme, effrayant, ingénu!
Si ton oeil, ton souris, ton pied, m'ouvrent la porte
D'un Infini que j'aime et n'ai jamais connu?
De Satan ou de Dieu, qu'importe? Ange ou Sirène,
Qu'importe, si tu rends, — fée aux yeux de velours,
Rythme, parfum, lueur, ô mon unique reine! —
L'univers moins hideux et les instants moins lourds?
— Charles Baudelaire
Your beautiful eyes are tired, poor dear!
Rest awhile, and keep them closed
In this nonchalant pose Where you were surprised with pleasure.
In the courtyard, the fountain chatters
And neither by night nor day is silent Quietly maintaining the rapture
Where love has plunged me tonight.
The spray blossoms out In thousands of flowers
Where Phœbé rejoices In setting her colours
Like heavyweight tears Falling as showers.
Just so is your soul set ablaze
Sensuously burning like lightning Rushing,
with quickness and daring Towards that vast enchanted sky.
Then it spreads out, only to die In a flood of languid sadness
That, by an invisible slope, Descends to the depths of my heart.
The spray blossoms out In thousands of flowers
Where Phœbé rejoices In setting her colours
Like heavyweight tears Falling as showers.
Oh, you that the night has rendered so fair How sweet it is,
when inclined to your breast,
To hear the eternal lament
That sobs in the basin!
Moon, resonant water, blessèd night,
Trees that quiver around us,
Your innocent sighs
Are the mirrors of love.
The spray blossoms out In thousands of flowers
Where Phœbé rejoices In setting her colours
Like heavyweight tears Falling as showers.
The Warner
Every man worthy of the name
Has in his heart a yellow Snake
Installed as if upon a throne,
Who, if he says: "I will!" answers: "No!"
Plunge your eyes into the fixed gaze
Of Satyresses or Nixies,
The Fang says: "Think of your duty!"
Beget children, set out trees,
Polish verses, sculpture marble,
The Fang says: "Will you be alive tonight?
Whatever he may plan or hope,
Man does not live for an instant
Without enduring the warning
Of the unbearable Viper.
The Blind
Contemplate them, my soul; they are truly frightful!
Like mannequins; vaguely ridiculous;
Strange and terrible, like somnambulists;
Darting, one never knows where, their tenebrous orbs.
Their eyes, from which the divine spark has departed,
Remain raised to the sky, as if they were looking
Into space: one never sees them toward the pavement
Dreamily bend their heavy heads.
Thus they go across the boundless darkness,
That brother of eternal silence. O city!
While about us you sing, laugh, and bellow,
In love with pleasure to the point of cruelty,
See! I drag along also! but, more dazed than they,
I say: "What do they seek in Heaven, all those blind?"
In that marvelous time in which Theology Flourished
with the greatest energy and vigor,
It is said that one day a most learned doctor —
After winning by force the indifferent hearts,
Having stirred them in the dark depths of their being;
After crossing on the way to celestial glory,
Singular and strange roads, even to him unknown,
Which only pure Spirits, perhaps, had reached,
— Panic-stricken, like one who has clambered too high,
He cried, carried away by a satanic pride:
"Jesus, little jesus! I raised you very high!
But had I wished to attack you through the defect
In your armor, your shame would equal your glory,
And you would be no more than a despised fetus!"
At that very moment his reason departed.
A crape of mourning veiled the brilliance of that sun;
Complete chaos rolled in and filled that intellect,
A temple once alive, ordered and opulent,
Within whose walls so much pomp had glittered.
Silence and darkness took possession of it
Like a cellar to which the key is lost.
Henceforth he was like the beasts in the street,
And when he went along, seeing nothing, across
The fields, distinguishing nor summer nor winter,
Dirty, useless, ugly, like a discarded thing,
He was the laughing-stock, the joke, of the children.
Nature is a temple in which living pillars
Sometimes give voice to confused words;
Man passes there through forests of symbols
Which look at him with understanding eyes.
Like prolonged echoes mingling in the distance
In a deep and tenebrous unity,
Vast as the dark of night and as the light of day,
Perfumes, sounds, and colors correspond.
There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children,
Sweet as oboes, green as meadows
— And others are corrupt, and rich, triumphant,
With power to expand into infinity,
Like amber and incense, musk, benzoin,
That sing the ecstasy of the soul and senses.
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!
My former life
Tinged 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.
The Sick Muse
My poor Muse, alas! what ails you today?
Your hollow eyes are full of nocturnal visions;
I see in turn reflected on your face
Horror and madness, cold and taciturn.
Have the green succubus, the rosy elf,
Poured out for you love and fear from their urns?
Has the hand of Nightmare, cruel and despotic,
Plunged you to the bottom of some weird Minturnae?
I would that your bosom, fragrant with health,
Were constantly the dwelling place of noble thoughts,
And that your Christian blood would flow in rhythmic waves
Like the measured sounds of ancient verse,
Over which reign in turn the father of all songs,
Phoebus, and the great Pan, lord of harvest.
