THE FLOWERS OF EVIL. Charles Baudelaire

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СКАЧАТЬ make on him the trial of their ferocity.

      Within the bread and wine outspread for his repast

      To mingle dust and dirty spittle they essay,

      And everything he touches, forth they slyly cast,

      Or scourge themselves, if e’er their feet betrod his way.

      His wife goes round proclaiming in the crowded quads –

      “Since he can find my body beauteous to behold,

      Why not perform the office of those ancient gods

      And like unto them, redeck myself with shining gold?”

      “I’ll bathe myself with incense, spikenard and myrrh,

      With genuflexions, delicate viandes and wine,

      To see, in jest, if from a heart, that loves me dear,

      I cannot filch away the hommages divine.”

      “And when of these impious jokes at length I tire,

      My frail but mighty hands, around his breast entwined,

      With nails, like harpies’ nails, shall cunningly conspire

      The hidden path unto his feeble heart to find.”

      “And like a youngling bird that trembles in its nest,

      I’ll pluck his heart right out; within its own blood drowned,

      And finally to satiate my favourite beast,

      I’ll throw it with intense disdain upon the ground!”

      Towards the Heavens where he sees the sacred grail

      The poet calmly stretches forth his pious arms,

      Whereon the lightenings from his lucid spirit veil

      The sight of the infuriated mob that swarms.

      “Oh blest be thou, Almighty who bestowest pain,

      Like some divine redress for our infirmities,

      And like the most refreshing and the purest rain,

      To sanctify the strong, for saintly ecstasies.”

      “I know that for the poet thou wilt grant a chair,

      Among the Sainted Legion and the Blissful ones,

      That of the endless feast thou wilt accord his share

      To him, of Virtues, Dominations and of Thrones.”

      “I know, that Sorrow is that nobleness alone,

      Which never may corrupted be by hell nor curse,

      I know, in order to enwreathe my mystic crown

      I must inspire the ages and the universe.”

      “And yet the buried jewels of Palmyra old,

      The undiscovered metals and the pearly sea

      Of gems, that unto me you show could never hold

      Beside this diadem of blinding brilliancy.”

      “For it shall be engendered from the purest fire

      Of rays primeval, from the holy hearth amassed,

      Of which the eyes of Mortals, in their sheen entire,

      Are but the tarnished mirrors, sad and overcast!”

      Echoes

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      In Nature’s temple, living columns rise,

      Which oftentimes give tongue to words subdued,

      And Man traverses this symbolic wood,

      Which looks at him with half familiar eyes,

      Like lingering echoes, which afar confound

      Themselves in deep and sombre unity,

      As vast as Night, and like transplendency,

      The scents and colours to each other respond.

      And scents there are, like infant’s flesh as chaste,

      As sweet as oboes, and as meadows fair,

      And others, proud, corrupted, rich and vast,

      Which have the expansion of infinity,

      Like amber, musk and frankincense and myrrh,

      That sing the soul’s and senses’ ecstasy.

      The Sick Muse

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      Alas – my poor Muse – what aileth thee now?

      Thine eyes are bedimmed with the visions of Night,

      And silent and cold – I perceive on thy brow

      In their turns – Despair and Madness alight.

      A succubus green, or a hobgoblin red,

      Has it poured o’er thee Horror and Love from its urn?

      Or the Nightmare with masterful bearing hath led

      Thee to drown in the depths of some magic Minturne?

      I wish, as the health-giving fragrance I cull,

      That thy breast with strong thoughts could for ever be full,

      And that rhymthmic’ly flowing – thy Christian blood

      Could resemble the olden-time metrical-flood,

      Where each in his turn reigned the father of Rhymes

      Phoebus – and Pan, lord of Harvest-times.

      The Venal Muse

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      Oh Muse of my heart – so fond of palaces old,

      Wilt have – when New Year СКАЧАТЬ