Part 13

Like the Apostles or the Wandering Jew; Go where they will, the Slayer goes there too! And there are some, and these are of the wise, Who die as soon as birth has lit their eyes.

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 Hell and Heaven through, Deep in the Unknown seeking something _new_!

FROM THE FLOWERS OF EVIL

Translated by W. J. Robertson

BENEDICTION

When, by the sovran will of Powers Eternal, The poet passed into this weary world, His mother, filled with fears and doubts infernal, Clenching her hands towards Heaven these curses hurled.

--"Why rather did I not within me treasure "A knot of serpents than this thing of scorn? "Accursed be the night of fleeting pleasure "Whence in my womb this chastisement was borne!

"Since thou hast chosen me to be the woman "Whose loathsome fruitfulness her husband shames, "Who may not cast aside this birth inhuman, "As one that flings love-tokens to the flames,

"The hatred that on me thy vengeance launches "On this thwart creature I will pour in flood: "So twist the sapling that its withered branches "Shall never once put forth a cankered bud!"

Regorging thus the venom of her malice, And misconceiving thy decrees sublime, In deep Gehenna's gulf she fills the chalice Of torments destined to maternal crime.

Yet, safely sheltered by his viewless angel, The Childe forsaken revels in the Sun; And all his food and drink is an evangel Of nectared sweets, sent by the Heavenly One.

He communes with the clouds, knows the wind's voices, And on his pilgrimage enchanted sings; Seeing how like the wild bird he rejoices The hovering Spirit weeps and folds his wings.

All those he fain would love shrink back in terror, Or, boldened by his fearlessness elate, Seek to seduce him into sin and error, And flesh on him the fierceness of their hate.

In bread and wine, wherewith his soul is nourished, They mix their ashes and foul spume impure; Lying they cast aside the things he cherished, And curse the chance that made his steps their lure.

His spouse goes crying in the public places: "Since he doth choose my beauty to adore, "Aping those ancient idols Time defaces "I would regild my glory as of yore.

"Nard, balm and myrrh shall tempt till he desires me "With blandishments, with dainties and with wine, "Laughing if in a heart that so admires me "I may usurp the sovranty divine!

"Until aweary of love's impious orgies, "Fastening on him my fingers firm and frail, "These claws, keen as the harpy's when she gorges, "Shall in the secret of his heart prevail.

"Then, thrilled and trembling like a young bird captured, "The bleeding heart shall from his breast be torn; "To glut his maw my wanton hound, enraptured, "Shall see me fling it to the earth in scorn."

Heavenward, where he beholds a throne resplendent, The poet lifts his hands, devout and proud, And the vast lightnings of a soul transcendent Veil from his gaze awhile the furious crowd:--

"Blessed be thou, my God, that givest sorrow, "Sole remedy divine for things unclean, "Whence souls robust a healing virtue borrow, "That tempers them for sacred joys serene!

"I know thou hast ordained in blissful regions "A place, a welcome in the festal bowers, "To call the poet with thy holy Legions, "Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers.

"I know that Sorrow is the strength of Heaven, "'Gainst which in vain strive ravenous Earth and Hell, "And that his crown must be of mysteries woven "Whereof all worlds and ages hold the spell.

"But not antique Palmyra's buried treasure, "Pearls of the sea, rare metal, precious gem, "Though set by thine own hand could fill the measure "Of beauty for his radiant diadem;

"For this thy light alone, intense and tender, "Flows from the primal source of effluence pure, "Whereof all mortal eyes, though bright their splendour, "Are but the broken glass and glimpse obscure." SPLEEN ET IDEAL.

ILL LUCK

To bear so vast a load of grief Thy courage, Sisyphus, I crave! My heart against the task is brave, But Art is long and Time is brief.

For from Fame's proud sepulchral arches, Towards a graveyard lone and dumb, My sad heart, like a muffled drum, Goes beating slow funereal marches.

--Full many a shrouded jewel sleeps In dark oblivion, lost in deeps Unknown to pick or plummet's sound:

Full many a weeping blossom flings Her perfume, sweet as secret things, In silent solitudes profound. LE GUIGNON.

BEAUTY

My face is a marmoreal dream, O mortals! And on my breast all men are bruised in turn, So moulded that the poet's love may burn Mute and eternal as the earth's cold portals.

Throned like a Sphinx unveiled in the blue deep, A heart of snow my swan-white beauty muffles; I hate the line that undulates and ruffles: And never do I laugh and never weep.

The poets, prone beneath my presence towering With stately port of proudest obelisks, Worship with rites austere, their days devouring;

For I have charms to keep their love, pure disks That make all things more beautiful and tender: My large eyes, radiant with eternal splendour! LA BEAUTÉ.

IDEAL LOVE

No, never can these frail ephemeral creatures, The withered offspring of a worthless age, These buskined limbs, these false and painted features, The hunger of a heart like mine assuage.

Leave to the laureate of sickly posies Gavami's hospital sylphs, a simpering choir! Vainly I seek among those pallid roses One blossom that allures my red desire.

Thou with my soul's abysmal dreams be blended, Lady Macbeth, in crime superb and splendid, A dream of Æschylus flowered in cold eclipse

Of Northern suns! Thou, Night, inspire my passion, Calm child of Angelo, coiling in strange fashion Thy large limbs moulded for a Titan's lips! L'IDÉAL.

HYMN TO BEAUTY

Be thou from Hell upsprung or Heaven descended, Beauty! thy look demoniac and divine Pours good and evil things confusedly blended, And therefore art thou likened unto wine.

Thine eye with dawn is filled, with twilight dwindles, Like winds of night thou sprinklest perfumes mild; Thy kiss, that is a spell, the child's heart kindles, Thy mouth, a chalice, makes the man a child.

Fallen from the stars or risen from gulfs of error, Fate dogs thy glamoured garments like a slave; With wanton hands thou scatterest joy and terror, And rulest over all, cold as the grave.

Thou tramplest on the dead, scornful and cruel, Horror coils like an amulet round thine arms, Crime on thy superb bosom is a jewel That dances amorously among its charms.

The dazzled moth that flies to thee, the candle, Shrivels and burns, blessing thy fatal flame; The lover that dies fawning o'er thy sandal Fondles his tomb and breathes the adored name.

What if from Heaven or Hell thou com'st, immortal Beauty? O sphinx-like monster, since alone Thine eye, thy smile, thy hand opens the portal Of the Infinite I love and have not known.

What if from God or Satan be the evangel? Thou my sole Queen! Witch of the velvet eyes! Since with thy fragrance, rhythm and light, O Angel! In a less hideous world time swiftlier flies. HYMNE À LA BEAUTÉ.

EXOTIC FRAGRANCE

When, with closed eyes in the warm autumn night, I breathe the fragrance of thy bosom bare, My dream unfurls a clime of loveliest air, Drenched in the fiery sun's unclouded light.

An indolent island dowered with heaven's delight, Trees singular and fruits of savour rare, Men having sinewy frames robust and spare, And women whose clear eyes are wondrous bright.

Led by thy fragrance to those shores I hail A charmed harbour thronged with mast and sail, Still wearied with the quivering sea's unrest;

What time the scent of the green tamarinds That thrills the air and fills my swelling breast Blends with the mariners' song and the sea-winds. PARFUM EXOTIQUE.

XXVIII SONNET

In undulant robes with nacreous sheen impearled She walks as in some stately saraband; Or like lithe snakes by sacred charmers curled In cadence wreathing on the slender wand.

Calm as blue wastes of sky and desert sand That watch unmoved the sorrows of this world; With slow regardless sweep as on the strand The long swell of the woven sea-waves swirled.

Her polished orbs are like a mystic gem, And, while this strange and symbolled being links The inviolate angel and the antique sphinx,

Insphered in gold, steel, light and diadem The splendour of a lifeless star endows With clear cold majesty the barren spouse.

MUSIC

Launch me, O music, whither on the soundless Sea my star gleams pale! I beneath cloudy cope or rapt in boundless Æther set my sail;

With breast outblown, swollen by the wind that urges Swelling sheets, I scale The summit of the wave whose vexed surges Night from me doth veil;

A labouring vessel's passions in my pulses Thrill the shuddering sense; The wind that wafts, the tempest that convulses, O'er the gulf immense Swing me.--Anon flat calm and clearer air Glass my soul's despair! LA MUSIQUE.

THE SPIRITUAL DAWN

When on some wallowing soul the roseate East Dawns with the Ideal that awakes and gnaws, By vengeful working of mysterious laws An angel rises in the drowsed beast.

The inaccessible blue of the soul-sphere To him whose grovelling dream remorse doth gall Yawns wide as when the gulfs of space enthral. So, heavenly Goddess, Spirit pure and clear,

Even on the reeking ruins of vile shame Thy rosy vision, beautiful and bright, For ever floats on my enlargëd sight.

Thus sunlight blackens the pale taper-flame; And thus is thy victorious phantom one, O soul of splendour, with the immortal Sun! L'AUBE SPIRITUELLE.

THE FLAWED BELL

Bitter and sweet it is, in winter night, Hard by the flickering fire that smokes, to list While far-off memories rise in sad slow flight, With chimes that echo singing through the mist.

O blessëd be the bell whose vigorous throat, In spite of age alert, with strength unspent, Utters religiously his faithful note, Like an old warrior watching near the tent!

My soul, alas! is flawed, and when despair Would people with her songs the chill night-air Too oft they faint in hoarse enfeebled tones,

As when a wounded man forgotten moans By the red pool, beneath a heap of dead, And dying writhes in frenzy on his bed. LA CLOCHE FÉLÉE.

THREE POEMS FROM BAUDELAIRE

Translated by Richard Herne Shepherd

I

A CARCASS

Recall to mind the sight we saw, my soul, That soft, sweet summer day: Upon a bed of flints a carrion foul, Just as we turn'd the way

Its legs erected, wanton-like, in air, Burning and sweating past, In unconcern'd and cynic sort laid bare To view its noisome breast.

The sun lit up the rottenness with gold, To bake it well inclined, And give great Nature back a hundredfold All she together join'd.

The sky regarded as the carcass proud Oped flower-like to the day; So strong the odour, on the grass you vow'd You thought to faint away.

The flies the putrid belly buzz'd about, Whence black battalions throng Of maggots, like thick liquid flowing out The living rags along.

And as a wave they mounted and went down, Or darted sparkling wide: As if the body, by a wild breath blown, Lived as it multiplied.

From all this life a music strange there ran, Like wind and running burns: Or like the wheat a winnower in his fan With rhythmic movement turns.

The forms wore off, and as a dream grew faint, An outline dimly shown, And which the artist finishes to paint From memory alone.

Behind the rocks watch'd us with angry eye A bitch disturb'd in theft, Waiting to take, till we had pass'd her by The morsel she had left.

Yet you will be like that corruption too, Like that infection prove-- Star of my eyes, sun of my nature, you, My angel and my love!

Queen of the graces, you will even be so, When, the last ritual said, Beneath the grass and the fat flowers you go, To mould among the dead.

Then, O my beauty, tell the insatiate worm, Who wastes you with his kiss, I have kept the godlike essence and the form Of perishable bliss!

II

WEEPING AND WANDERING

Say, Agatha, if at times your spirit turns Far from the black sea of the city's mud, To another ocean, where the splendour burns All blue, and clear, and deep as maidenhood? Say, Agatha, if your spirit thither turns?

The boundless sea consoles the weary mind! What demon gave the sea--that chantress hoarse To the huge organ of the chiding wind-- The function grand to rock us like a nurse? The boundless ocean soothes the jaded mind!

O car and frigate, bear me far away, For here our tears moisten the very clay. Is't true that Agatha's sad heart at times Says, far from sorrows, from remorse, from crimes, Remove me, car, and, frigate, bear away?

O perfumed paradise, how far removed, Where 'neath a clear sky all is love and joy, Where all we love is worthy to be loved, And pleasure drowns the heart, but does not cloy. O perfumed paradise, so far removed!

But the green paradise of childlike loves, The walks, the songs, the kisses, and the flowers, The violins dying behind the hills, the hours Of evening and the wine-flasks in the groves. But the green paradise of early loves,

The innocent paradise, full of stolen joys, Is't farther off than ev'n the Indian main? Can we recall it with our plaintive cries, Or give it life, with silvery voice, again, The innocent paradise, full of furtive joys?

III

LESBOS

Mother of Latin sports and Greek delights, Where kisses languishing or pleasureful, Warm as the suns, as the water-melons cool, Adorn the glorious days and sleepless nights, Mother of Latin sports and Greek delights.

Lesbos, where kisses are as waterfalls That fearless into gulfs unfathom'd leap, Now run with sobs, now slip with gentle brawls, Stormy and secret, manifold and deep; Lesbos, where kisses are as waterfalls!

Lesbos, where Phryne Phryne to her draws, Where ne'er a sigh did echoless expire, As Paphos' equal thee the stars admire, Nor Venus envies Sappho without cause! Lesbos, where Phryne Phryne to her draws,

Lesbos, the land of warm and languorous nights, Where by their mirrors seeking sterile good, The girls with hollow eyes, in soft delights, Caress the ripe fruits of their womanhood, Lesbos, the land of warm and languorous nights.

Leave, leave old Plato's austere eye to frown; Pardon is thine for kisses' sweet excess, Queen of the land of amiable renown, And for exhaustless subtleties of bliss, Leave, leave old Plato's austere eye to frown.

Pardon is thine for the eternal pain That on the ambitious hearts for ever lies, Whom far from us the radiant smile could gain, Seen dimly on the verge of other skies; Pardon is thine for the eternal pain!

Which of the gods will dare thy judge to be, And to condemn thy brow with labour pale, Not having balanced in his golden scale The flood of tears thy brooks pour'd in the sea? Which of the gods will dare thy judge to be?

What boot the laws of just and of unjust? Great-hearted virgins, honour of the isles, Lo, your religion also is august, And love at hell and heaven together smiles! What boot the laws of just and of unjust?

For Lesbos chose me out from all my peers, To sing the secret of her maids in flower, Opening the mystery dark from childhood's hour Of frantic laughters, mix'd with sombre tears; For Lesbos chose me out from all my peers.

And since I from Leucate's top survey, Like a sentinel with piercing eye and true, Watching for brig and frigate night and day, Whose distant outlines quiver in the blue, And since I from Leucate's top survey,

To learn if kind and merciful the sea, And midst the sobs that make the rock resound, Brings back some eve to pardoning Lesbos, free The worshipp'd corpse of Sappho, who made her bound To learn if kind and merciful the sea!

Of her the man-like lover-poetess, In her sad pallor more than Venus fair! The azure eye yields to that black eye, where The cloudy circle tells of the distress Of her the man-like lover-poetess!

Fairer than Venus risen on the world, Pouring the treasures of her aspect mild, The radiance of her fair white youth unfurl'd On Ocean old enchanted with his child; Fairer than Venus risen on the world.

Of Sappho, who, blaspheming, died that day When trampling on the rite and sacred creed, She made her body fair the supreme prey Of one whose pride punish'd the impious deed Of Sappho who, blaspheming, died that day.

And since that time it is that Lesbos moans, And, spite the homage which the whole world pays, Is drunk each night with cries of pain and groans, Her desert shores unto the heavens do raise, And since that time it is that Lesbos moans!

INTIMATE PAPERS FROM THE UNPUBLISHED WORKS OF BAUDELAIRE

Translated by Joseph T. Shipley

ROCKETS

MY HEART LAID BARE

The following pages (not included in the "complete" French edition) contain notes found after the death of Baudelaire; disconnected fragments; echoes; pistils of ideas, promising wondrous blossom, to which no pollen came. They epitomize the moral and intellectual life of the artist. In his own art, Baudelaire is the creator of a new mood, in which Maeterlinck and Verlaine are among his disciples, where Swinburne and Wilde have followed him; in painting and in music, his criticism was seeking in 1850 all that the later development of these arts has brought forth. The reflection of that brilliant mind glows in these intimate pages.

In the almost absolute isolation in which he confined himself more and more, Baudelaire, who had so loved to expand in conversation, felt the need of a confidant that would not importune him with useless counsels, nor with expressions of sympathy he would have repulsed, if only through dandyism. Paper alone could be that confidant.

The poet is wholly within these journals, with his religious, political, moral and literary theories, above all, with the explicit evidence of his weaknesses and his griefs. What skilled theologian has made a more haughty confession than this: "There are none great among men save the poet, the priest and the soldier; the man who sings, the man who blesses, the man who sacrifices others and himself. The rest is made for the whip"? What political economist has made a more absolute declaration of principles than this: "There is no reasonable, stable government save the aristocratic. Monarchy and republic, based on democracy, are equally weak and absurd"?

His ideal of the greatness of the individual is derived logically from his conception of an aristocratic society under the triumvirate of the poet, the priest and the soldier. "Before all, to be a great man and a saint for one's self;" that, for Baudelaire, is the one ambition worthy of a superior nature. He has indicated the principal traits of the ideal "dandy" that he has sought unceasingly. The dandy is not only the most elegant of men, of the most original and discriminating tastes, which he exercises in his habits, in the choice of his books or his mistress; he is armed with a will superior to all obstacles, opposing caprice with invincible energy, and correcting in himself the inevitable faults of nature with all the resources of art.

The two manuscripts in which these ideals are scattered differ so slightly that it might seem impossible to decide which should be read first. A closer examination, however, indicates that _Rockets_ is of the period about ten years before the author's death, while _My Heart Laid Bare_ belongs entirely to the days when he felt the first attacks of the illness that was to bear him off. No effort has been made to group the paragraphs according to topic; they are printed as they appear in the manuscript (the page divisions of which are indicated by the successive numbers). The documents furnish an interesting supplement to the more formal works of the poet, and a valuable contribution to literature.

INTIMATE PAPERS

ROCKETS

I

Even if God did not exist, religion would still be holy and divine.

God is the only being who, to govern, need not even exist.

That which is created by the mind lives more truly than matter.

Love is the desire of prostitution. There is not even one noble pleasure which cannot be reduced to prostitution.

At a play, at a ball, each one finds pleasure in all. What is art? Prostitution.

The pleasure of being in a crowd is a mysterious expression of joy in the multiplication of number.

_All_ is number. Number is in _all_. Number is in the individual. Intoxication is a number.

The desire of productive concentration ought to replace, in a mature being, the desire of deperdition.

Love may spring from a generous emotion: desire of prostitution; but it is soon corrupted by the desire of possession.

Love would like to come out of itself, to merge itself in its victim, as the victor in the vanquished, while still preserving the privileges of the conqueror.

The delights of whoso keeps a mistress partake at once of the angel and of the proprietor. Charity and ferocity. They are even independent of sex, of beauty, of the animal kind.

Immense depth of thought in popular phrases, hollowed out by generations of ants.

II

Of the femininity of the Church, as the reason for its omnipotence.

Of the color violet (restrained, mysterious, veiled love, color of canoness).

The priest is immense, because he makes one believe in a host of astounding matters. That the Church wants to do all and to be all, is a law of the human mind. Mankind worships authority. Priests are the servants and sectaries of the imagination. The throne and the altar, revolutionary maxim. Religious intoxication of great cities. Pantheism. I, that is all; all, that is I. Vortex.

III