A Phantom II: The Perfume

Reader, have you ever breathed deeply,
with slow savour and intoxicated sense,
a churchs saturating grain of incense,
or the long-lasting musk in a sachet?

Profound magical spell where we
are drunk on the past restored in the present.
So lovers on an adored body scent
the exquisite flower of memory.

From her pliant and heavy hair,
living sachet, censer of the alcoves,
a fragrance, wild and savage, rose,

and from her clothes, velvet or muslin, there,
impregnated with her pure years,
emanated a perfume of furs.

Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire was a renowned French poet, essayist, and art critic born on April 9, 1821, in Paris, France. Best known for his collection of poems Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), Baudelaire profoundly influenced the Symbolist and Modernist movements. He led a controversial life, marked by financial difficulties, substance abuse, and relationships with various women. Despite a relatively short life, dying at the age of 46 on August 31, 1867, his work has had a lasting impact on both French and international literature. Baudelaire's writing is characterized by its exploration of beauty, decadence, and the human condition.

Charles Baudelaire

Contemplation

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

The Gifts Of The Moon

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

Burial

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

The Glass-Vendor

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Exotic Perfume

When with closed eyes in autumn's eves of gold
I breathe the burning odours of your breast,
Before my eyes the hills of happy rest
Bathed in the sun's monotonous fires, unfold.

Islands of Lethe where exotic boughs
Bend with their burden of strange fruit bowed down,
Where men are upright, maids have never grown
Unkind, but bear a light upon their brows.

Led by that perfume to these lands of ease,
I see a port where many ships have flown
With sails outwearied of the wandering seas;

While the faint odours from green tamarisks blown,
Float to my soul and in my senses throng,
And mingle vaguely with the sailor's song.

Charles Baudelaire

A Phantom

I. The Blackness

In vaults of fathomless obscurity
Where Destiny has sentenced me for life;
Where cheerful rosy beams may never shine;
Where, living with that sullen hostess, Night,

I am an artist that a mocking God
Condemns, alas! to paint the gloom itself;
Where like a cook with ghoulish appetite
I boil and devour my own heart,

Sometimes there sprawls, and stretches out, and glows
A splendid ghost, of a surpassing charm,
And when this vision growing in my sight

In oriental languor, like a dream,
Is fully formed, I know the phantom's name:
Yes, it is She! though black, yet full oflight.


II. The Perfume

During your lifetime, reader, have you breathed,
Slow-savouring to the point of dizziness,
That grain of in...

Charles Baudelaire

Head Of Hair

O fleece, billowing even down the neck!
O locks! 0 perfume charged with nonchalance!
What ecstasy! To people our dark room
With memories that sleep within this mane,
I'll shake it like a kerchief in the air!

Languorous Asia, scorching Africa,
A whole world distant, vacant, nearly dead,
Lives in your depths, o forest of perfume!
While other spirits sail on symphonies
Mine, my beloved, swims along your scent.

I will go down there, where the trees and men,
Both full of sap, swoon in the ardent heat;
Strong swelling tresses, carry me away!
Yours, sea of ebony, a dazzling dream
Of sails, of oarsmen, waving pennants, masts:

A sounding harbour where my soul can drink
From great floods subtle tones, perfumes and hues;
Where vessels gliding in th...

Charles Baudelaire

The Head Of Hair

O fleece, billowing down to the shoulders!
O curls! O perfume charged with languor!
Ecstasy! To populate loves dark alcove,
With memories sleeping tonight in your hair,
Id wave it, like a handkerchief, in the air!

Languid Asia and burning Africa,
absent worlds, far-off, almost dead,
live in your forest-depths of aromas!
As music floats other spirits away,
mine, my love, sails your fragrance instead.

Ill go where, full of sap, trees and men
Swoon endlessly in that ardent climate:
Thick tresses, be my tide! You contain,
O sea of ebony, the dazzling dream,
of masts, flames, sails, and oarsmen:

an echoing port where my souls a drinker
of sound, colour, scent in rolling waves:
where vessels, gliding through silk and amber,
open wide ...

Charles Baudelaire

Far Away from Here

This is the sanctuary
where the prettified young lady,
calm, and always ready,

fans her breasts, aglow,
elbow on the pillow,
hears the fountains flow:

its the room of Dorothea.
The breeze and water distantly
sing their song, mingled here
with sobs to soothe the spoiled childs fear.

From tip to toe, most thoroughly,
her delicate surfaces appear,
oiled with sweet perfumery.
the flowers nearby swoon gracefully.

Charles Baudelaire

Correspondences

In Nature's temple living pillars rise,
And words are murmured none have understood,
And man must wander through a tangled wood
Of symbols watching him with friendly eyes.

As long-drawn echoes heard far-off and dim
Mingle to one deep sound and fade away;
Vast as the night and brilliant as the day,
Colour and sound and perfume speak to him.

Some perfumes are as fragrant as a child,
Sweet as the sound of hautboys, meadow-green;
Others, corrupted, rich, exultant, wild,

Have all the expansion of things infinite:
As amber, incense, musk, and benzoin,
Which sing the sense's and the soul's delight.

Charles Baudelaire