300

Do you recall the object,

                As it was the morning and in

Our half sleep we had poured cups of

Milk and                          Had sat quietly 

In the light that              Covered the table

                Drinking as the air came down

From the opening at the height of your

Blue windows,

                             And as I had dressed in

A shirt of white cotton

And led you from your house

                            Into the cool lanes,

                            Do you recall the object,

Where I was a white figure before you

And you were blinded

        By the ferocity of that clear matin,

        So soft as it came upon us,

The burnished shade       Beneath oaks

                                              That seemed

Calcified giants in the      Trembling heat,

The grasses alive with voices

        As of lost spirits

That called their powers home,

                                                    O soul,

Do you recall the object that we saw?

            Murmuring in its haze of shapes,

A dark sleeper.

                        The voices of birds rang

                                              In the stillness.

297

Baudelaire : LE FLACON

There are strong perfumes for which all matter
Is porous. They seem to penetrate the glass.
Opening a casket brought from the Orient,
The lock protesting as it grates and stalls,

Or in some armoire of a deserted house, dusty
And black, breathing of time's bitter odour,
Sometimes you find an old flask from which
The bright soul of a recollection springs.

Manifold thoughts that had slept there, funereal
Chrysalides trembling in the humid darkness,
Draw out their wings and take to the air,
Tinted with azur, glazed with pink, leafed in gold.

Look there! an intoxicating memory flutters
In the murky air! Your eyes close : Vertigo
Seizes your vanquished soul, and pushes it bodily
Toward a gulf darkened by human miasmas.

It throws you down at the edge of an ancient chasm
Where, like Lazarus casting off the shroud,
A spectral cadaver moves as it begins to wake :
The old form of a charming, rancid love.

Just so, when I am lost to the memory of man,
When they have thrown me in the corner
Of a sinister armoire, an old and desolate casing,
Broken and abject and smeared with dust,

I will be your casket, my amiable sickness :
The testimony of your force and your virulence,
O dear poison prepared by the angels! Liquor that
Devours me! My heart lives and it dies in you.

295

Baudelaire : TOUT ENTIÈRE

This morning the Demon came
To me in my high chamber,
And, trying to catch me at fault,
Said to me : "I would like to know,

Among all the fine things
That make up her allure,
Among the black or pink objects
That compose her charming body,

Which is the sweetest?" O my soul!
You responded to the Abhorred :
"Since in her all is as a dittany,
Nothing can hold preference.

When all ravishes me, I ignore
If one thing should seduce.
She dazzles like the Aurora
And consoles like the Night ;

The harmony that governs her
Beautiful form is too exquisite
For any impotent analysis to
Note its numerous accords.

O mystic metamorphosis
Of all my senses melted into one!
Her breathing makes music,
As her voice makes perfume!"

294

Baudelaire : UNE CHAROGNE

Do you remember the object we saw, my love,
                That fine, soft morning of summer?
At a confluence of paths, a degenerate carrion
                Lay on a bed strewn with stones,

Its legs in the air like a lubricious woman,
                 Burning and sweating out toxins,
Displaying in a nonchalant and cynical manner
                Its stomach full of exhalations.

The sun beamed down upon its putrefaction
                 As if to cook it to a tenderness,
As if to uncouple all its mass, and render it up
                To nature that first joined it into one.

And heaven watched where the superb carcass
                Bloomed like a flower.
The miasma was so strong, you seemed close
                To falling unconscious on the grass.

Flies droned above the putrid abdomen
                Out of which came black battalions
Of larvae, flowing like a thick liquid
                Over an expanse of living rags.

It all rose and fell like a tide, or at times
                Bore up with a dark crackle ;
It seemed that the body, inflated by the vague
                Breath of these multiplications, lived.

And this little world gave out a strange music,
                Like to running water or the breeze,
Or to the rhythmic motion of grain
                That a winnower agitates and turns.

The forms effaced themselves and were no more
                Than a dream. A half-finished sketch
On a forgotten canvas, that the artist
                 May complete only through memory.

From behind the rocks a dog watched us
                With a baleful eye, raising its hackles,
Awaiting the moment that it could claim from
                The skeleton a morsel it had left.

You will one day be the semblance of this refuse,
                 Of this horrific infection,
Star of my eyes, heliocentre of my existence! You,
                My angel and my passion!

Yes! You will be such as this, O queen of grace.
                 After the last sacraments,
You will go beneath the soil and the flourishing
                 Grasses, to mould in your ossements.

Then, O my beauty! tell the vermin,
                 As they consume you with their kisses,
That I have kept the form and the divine essence
                 Of my decomposed love!

293

Portrait d'Ambroise Vollard, 1899

He sits easily in a three piece suit
Of brown flannel, of which the
Breast opens upon a white doublet
And a curt navy bowtie. His back
Is slightly fallen as he leans against
The banquette of dark leather. He
Crooks his right leg over his left
Knee, his hands held loosely in his
Lap. Beneath them, a number of
Slim volumes he seems unaware of.
His face is frank and tired, a brown
Beard rising to his thin cheeks, and
A stoic mustache. His nose as solid
As his brow. His forehead is high,
And catches green and blue where
The clean morning light passes the
Coloured advertisements of the café
Windows. His expression is passive :
He seems almost the image of a man
Listening to the lengthy recitation
Of an old grief, unmoved to choler
Or to sadness. He does not show his
Force. His kindness is his intelligence.

291

As the snow comes down it swims
In luminous particles beneath the
Halogen lights that line the street,
Like the action of motes when dusk
Lays a golden beam through glass.
At this hour, the street is empty of
All pedestrians : at long intervals,
Solitary cars make their slow way
Down its length, their low engines
Breaking the hush, leaving dark,
Parallel curvatures as they crawl
Penitently toward the residential
Garages. Their is a rumour on the
Air as of an idea being born, but
It is only the fall of what has now
Fallen down the catalogue of years.
Our solitary life : the precipitation
Of sparks out of the great anvil of
A barren night, the snow lighting
Upon us in its fiery shoals. We are
As children, looking upon grace.

288

La Orana Maria, 1891

The virgin stands in a loose dress
Of faded red patterned with large
Flowers from which hang stamens
Heavy with pollen. Her full arms
Support the body of her son, who
Rests on her shoulder and inclines
Over her black hair. His body is
A bloated green and seems in the
Process of putrefaction. The air
About their heads is traced by two
Dull halos. About them the bounty
Of the earth extends : at the fore,
Bananas and guava ripen in bowls,
Slight flowers hang in triads from
The filaments of sparse bushes,
And beyond them the trees spread
Great clouds of incense over dusty
And vacant wheat fields. Ragged
Lights unwind themselves across
The face of the far mountains. The
Day tires of its chaleur, sliding into
Dormancy. In the lady's shadow
Three figures abase themselves.
Two village women, dressed only
In pareus skirts of white with gold
Motifs, clasp their hands before
Their soft bodies as if in prayer.
At back, a woman, faint behind the
Veil of her black hair, dressed in
A formless pink robe. From the apt
Curvature of her spine a collosal
Structure rises, bipartite. Her wings.
At their height the coverts are a blue
Of childhood nights and billowing
Curtains. The long primaries seem
To light the gloom where they hang,
The yellow of decaying palm leaves.
She appears to withhold her force,
Anticipating some commandword.
A body may contain such power.

274

Baudelaire: LA CLOCHE FÊLÉE

It is bitter and sweet, during the nights of winter,
Close to the fire that palpitates and fumes, to listen
For the distant recollections that rise up
At the sound of clarions singing in the mist.

Blessed is the bell with vigorous throat
Which, despite its age, alert and far-carrying,
Faithfully throws out its religious cry,
Like an old soldier watching from under a tent.

Me, my soul is cracked, and when in its ennui
It would people the cold night air with chants,
It often happens that its enfeebled voice

Seems the heavy groan of a forgotten casualty, left
At the edge of a lake of blood, under a great pile of
Bodies, who dies, immobile, in his immense efforts.

273

Baudelaire: SÉPULTURE

If on a heavy and sombre night
A good christian, by charity,
Inters your vaunted body
Behind some old debris,

At the hour when the chaste stars
Close their overburdened eyes,
The spider will make its webs
There, and the viper its young ;

You will hear all year long
Over your condemned head
The lamentable cries of wolves

And of famished witches,
The revels of lubricious old men,
The conspiracies of frauds.

272

Baudelaire: LA MUSIQUE

Music often carries me like a sea!
                Toward my pale star,
Beneath a hazy vault or in a vast ether,
                I set sail.

My chest forward and my lungs
                Swelling with the flax,
 I climb the backs of mounting waves
                Veiled by the night ;

I feel vibrating in me all the passions
               Of a suffering vessel ; the good
Wind, the tempest and its convulsions

                Cradling me over
An immense gulf. Other times a dead calm,
                Great mirror of my despair!