And dumb at last, To take your hand And shake your hand; And swink there Nor shrink there, TWELVE TRANSLATIONS FROM CHARLES BAUDELAIRE TOUT ENTIÈRE This morning in my attic high The Demon came to visit me, And seeking faults in my reply, He said: "I would inquire of thee, "Of all the beauties which compose Her charming body's potent spell, Of all the objects black and rose Which make the thing you love so well, "Which is the sweetest?" O my soul! Thou didst rejoin: "How tell of parts, When all I know is that the whole Works magic in my heart of hearts? "Where all is fair, how should I say What single grace is my delight? She shines on me like break of day And she consoles me as the night. "There flows through all her perfect frame A harmony too exquisite That weak analysis should name The numberless accords of it. "O mystic metamorphosis! My separate senses all are blent; Within her breath soft music is, And in her voice a subtle scent!" THE ALCHEMY OF GRIEF One, Nature! burns and makes thee bright, One gives thee weeds to mourn withal; And what to one is burial Is to the other life and light. The unknown Hermes who assists And alway fills my heart with fear Makes me the mighty Midas' peer The saddest of the alchemists. Through him I make gold changeable To dross, and paradise to hell; Clouds for its corpse-cloths I descry. A stark dead body I love well, And in the gleaming fields on high I build immense sarcophagi. SPLEEN When the low heavy sky weighs like a lid Upon the spirit aching for the light And all the wide horizon's line is hid By a black day sadder than any night; When the changed earth is but a dungeon dank Where batlike Hope goes blindly fluttering And, striking wall and roof and mouldered plank, Bruises his tender head and timid wing; When like grim prison-bars stretch down the thin, Straight, rigid pillars of the endless rain, And the dumb throngs of infamous spiders spin Their meshes in the caverns of the brain;— Suddenly, bells leap forth into the air, Hurling a
Prev.
Back
Top