The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire Part 12

But when at length the Slayer treads us low, We will have hope and cry, "'Tis time to go!"

As when of old we parted for Cathay With wind-blown hair and eyes upon the bay.

We will embark upon the Shadowy Sea, Like youthful wanderers for the first time free-- Hear you the lovely and funereal voice That sings: _O come all ye whose wandering joys_ _Are set upon the scented Lotus flower_, _For here we sell the fruit's miraculous boon_; _Come ye and drink the sweet and sleepy power_ _Of the enchanted, endless afternoon_.

VIII.

O Death, old Captain, it is time, put forth!

We have grown weary of the gloomy north; Though sea and sky are black as ink, lift sail!

Our hearts are full of light and will not fail.

O pour thy sleepy poison in the cup!

The fire within the heart so burns us up That we would wander h.e.l.l and Heaven through, Deep in the Unknown seeking something _new_!

LITTLE POEMS IN PROSE

THE STRANGER.

Tell me, enigmatic man, whom do you love best? Your father, your mother, your sister, or your brother?

"I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother."

Your friends, then?

"You use a word that until now has had no meaning for me."

Your country?

"I am ignorant of the lat.i.tude in which it is situated."

Then Beauty?

"Her I would love willingly, G.o.ddess and immortal."

Gold?

"I hate it as you hate your G.o.d."

What, then, extraordinary stranger, do you love?

"I love the clouds--the clouds that pa.s.s--yonder--the marvellous clouds."

EVERY MAN HIS CHIMaeRA.

Beneath a broad grey sky, upon a vast and dusty plain devoid of gra.s.s, and where not even a nettle or a thistle was to be seen, I met several men who walked bowed down to the ground.

Each one carried upon his back an enormous Chimaera as heavy as a sack of flour or coal, or as the equipment of a Roman foot-soldier.

But the monstrous beast was not a dead weight, rather she enveloped and oppressed the men with her powerful and elastic muscles, and clawed with her two vast talons at the breast of her mount. Her fabulous head reposed upon the brow of the man like one of those horrible casques by which ancient warriors hoped to add to the terrors of the enemy.

I questioned one of the men, asking him why they went so. He replied that he knew nothing, neither he nor the others, but that evidently they went somewhere, since they were urged on by an unconquerable desire to walk.

Very curiously, none of the wayfarers seemed to be irritated by the ferocious beast hanging at his neck and cleaving to his back: one had said that he considered it as a part of himself. These grave and weary faces bore witness to no despair. Beneath the splenetic cupola of the heavens, their feet trudging through the dust of an earth as desolate as the sky, they journeyed onwards with the resigned faces of men condemned to hope for ever. So the train pa.s.sed me and faded into the atmosphere of the horizon at the place where the planet unveils herself to the curiosity of the human eye.

During several moments I obstinately endeavoured to comprehend this mystery; but irresistible Indifference soon threw herself upon me, nor was I more heavily dejected thereby than they by their crus.h.i.+ng Chimaeras.

VENUS AND THE FOOL.

How admirable the day! The vast park swoons beneath the burning eye of the sun, as youth beneath the lords.h.i.+p of love.

There is no rumour of the universal ecstasy of all things. The waters themselves are as though drifting into sleep. Very different from the festivals of humanity, here is a silent revel.

It seems as though an ever-waning light makes all objects glimmer more and more, as though the excited flowers burn with a desire to rival the blue of the sky by the vividness of their colours; as though the heat, making perfumes visible, drives them in vapour towards their star.

Yet, in the midst of this universal joy, I have perceived one afflicted thing.

At the feet of a colossal Venus, one of those motley fools, those willing clowns whose business it is to bring laughter upon kings when weariness or remorse possesses them, lies wrapped in his gaudy and ridiculous garments, coined with his cap and bells, huddled against the pedestal, and raises towards the G.o.ddess his eyes filled with tears.

And his eyes say: "I am the last and most alone of all mortals, inferior to the meanest of animals in that I am denied either love or friends.h.i.+p.

Yet I am made, even I, for the understanding and enjoyment of immortal Beauty. O G.o.ddess, have pity upon my sadness and my frenzy."

The implacable Venus gazed into I know not what distances with her marble eyes.

INTOXICATION.

One must be for ever drunken: that is the sole question of importance.

If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time that bruises your shoulders and bends you to the earth, you must be drunken without cease.