TWELVE TRANSLATIONS FROM CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

TOUT ENTIÈRE

THE ALCHEMY OF GRIEF

SPLEEN

A VOYAGE TO CYTHERA

THE CRACKED BELL

THE OFFENDED MOON

TO THEODORE BANVILLE, 1984

MUSIC

THE CATS

THE SADNESS OF THE MOON

MOESTA ET ERRABUNDA

THE OWLS

Many of the above poems have appeared in the "British Review," the "Eye-Witness," the "New Witness," the "Oxford and Cambridge Review," the "New Statesman," and the "New Age," to the Editors of which thanks are due for permission to reprint. Three of the short poems and most of the translations are extracted from an earlier volume.

 ANTINOMIES ON A RAILWAY STATION As I stand waiting in the rain For the foggy hoot of the London train, Gazing at silent wall and lamp And post and rail and platform damp, What is this power that comes to my sight That I see a night without the night, That I see them clear, yet look them through, The silvery things and the darkly blue, That the solid wall seems soft as death, A wavering and unanchored wraith, And rails that shine and stones that stream Unsubstantial as a dream? What sudden door has opened so, What hand has passed, that I should know This moving vision not of trance That melts the globe of circumstance, This sight that marks not least or most And makes a stone a passing ghost? Is it that a year ago I stood upon this self-same spot; Is it that since a year ago The place and I have altered 

 Prev. P 3/50 next