The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire Part 3

Muse of my heart, lover of palaces, When January comes with wind and sleet, During the snowy eve's long wearinesses, Will there be fire to warm thy violet feet?

Wilt thou reanimate thy marble shoulders In the moon-beams that through the window fly?

Or when thy purse dries up, thy palace moulders, Reap the far star-gold of the vaulted sky?

For thou, to keep thy body to thy soul, Must swing a censer, wear a holy stole, And chaunt Te Deums with unbelief between.

Or, like a starving mountebank, expose Thy beauty and thy tear-drowned smile to those Who wait thy jeste to drive away thy spleen.

THE EVIL MONK.

The ancient cloisters on their lofty walls Had holy Truth in painted frescoes shown, And, seeing these, the pious in those halls Felt their cold, lone austereness less alone.

At that time when Christ's seed flowered all around, More than one monk, forgotten in his hour, Taking for studio the burial-ground, Glorified Death with simple faith and power.

And my soul is a sepulchre where I, Ill cen.o.bite, have spent eternity: On the vile cloister walls no pictures rise.

O when may I cast off this weariness, And make the pageant of my old distress For these hands labour, pleasure for these eyes?

THE TEMPTATION.

The Demon, in my chamber high.

This morning came to visit me, And, thinking he would find some fault, He whispered: "I would know of thee

Among the many lovely things That make the magic of her face, Among the beauties, black and rose, That make her body's charm and grace,

Which is most fair?" Thou didst reply To the Abhorred, O soul of mine: "No single beauty is the best When she is all one flower divine.

When all things charm me I ignore Which one alone brings most delight; She s.h.i.+nes before me like the dawn, And she consoles me like the night.

The harmony is far too great, That governs all her body fair, For impotence to a.n.a.lyse And say which note is sweetest there.

O mystic metamorphosis!

My senses into one sense flow-- Her voice makes perfume when she speaks, Her breath is music faint and low!"

THE IRREPARABLE.

Can we suppress the old Remorse Who bends our heart beneath his stroke, Who feeds, as worms feed on the corse, Or as the acorn on the oak?

Can we suppress the old Remorse!

Ah, in what philtre, wine, or spell, May we drown this our ancient foe, Destructive glutton, gorging well, Patient as the ants, and slow?

What wine, what philtre, or what spell?

Tell it, enchantress, if you can, Tell me, with anguish overcast, Wounded, as a dying man, Beneath the swift hoofs hurrying past.

Tell it, enchantress, if you can,

To him the wolf already tears Who sees the carrion pinions wave, This broken warrior who despairs To have a cross above his grave-- This wretch the wolf already tears.

Can one illume a leaden sky, Or tear apart the shadowy veil Thicker than pitch, no star on high, Not one funereal glimmer pale Can one illume a leaden sky?

Hope lit the windows of the Inn, But now that s.h.i.+ning flame is dead; And how shall martyred pilgrims win Along the moonless road they tread?

Satan has darkened all the Inn!

Witch, do you love accursed hearts?

Say, do you know the reprobate?

Know you Remorse, whose venomed darts Make souls the targets for their hate?

Witch, do you know accursed hearts?

The Might-have-been with tooth accursed Gnaws at the piteous souls of men, The deep foundations suffer first, And all the structure crumbles then Beneath the bitter tooth accursed.

II.

Often, when seated at the play, And sonorous music lights the stage, I see the frail hand of a Fay With magic dawn illume the rage Of the dark sky. Oft at the play

A being made of gauze and fire Casts to the earth a Demon great.

And my heart, whence all hopes expire, Is like a stage where I await, In vain, the Fay with wings of fire!

A FORMER LIFE.

Long since, I lived beneath vast porticoes, By many ocean-sunsets tinged and fired, Where mighty pillars, in majestic rows, Seemed like basaltic caves when day expired.

The rolling surge that mirrored all the skies Mingled its music, turbulent and rich, Solemn and mystic, with the colours which The setting sun reflected in my eyes.

And there I lived amid voluptuous calms, In splendours of blue sky and wandering wave, Tended by many a naked, perfumed slave,

Who fanned my languid brow with waving palms.

They were my slaves--the only care they had To know what secret grief had made me sad.

DON JUAN IN HADES.