Chapter 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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