Harmony Of Evening

Now those days arrive when, stem throbbing,
each flower sheds its fragrance like a censer:
sounds and scents twine in the evening air:
languorous dizziness, Melancholy dancing!


Each flower sheds its fragrance like a censer:
the violin quivers, a heart thats suffering:
languorous dizziness, Melancholy dancing!
the sky is lovely, sad like a huge altar.


The violin quivers, a heart thats suffering:
a heart, hating the vast black void, so tender!
the sky is lovely, sad like a huge altar:
the sun is drowned, in its own blood congealing.


A heart, hating the vast black void, so tender:
each trace of the luminous past its gathering!
The sun is drowned, in its own blood congealing
A vessel of the host, your memory shines there.

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

Invitation To The Voyage

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

The Ransom

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

The Confiteor Of The Artist

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

The Gifts Of The Moon

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.

The Harmony Of Evening

Now it is nearly time when, quivering on its stem,
Each flower, like a censer, sprinkles out its scent;
Sounds and perfumes are mingling in the evening air;
Waltz of a mournfulness and languid vertigo!

Each flower, like a censer, sprinkles out its scent,
The violin is trembling like a grieving heart,
Waltz of a mournfulness and languid vertigo!
The sad and lovely sky spreads like an altar-cloth;

The violin is trembling like a grieving heart,
A tender heart, that hates non-being, vast and black!
The sad and lovely sky spreads like an altar-cloth;
The sun is drowning in its dark, congealing blood.

A tender heart that hates non-being, vast and black
Assembles every glowing vestige of the past!
The sun is drowning in its dark, congealing blood...
In m...

Charles Baudelaire

Mist And Rain

Late autumns, winters, spring-times steeped in mud,
anaesthetizing seasons! You I praise, and love
for so enveloping my heart and brain
in vaporous shrouds, in sepulchres of rain.


In this vast landscape where chill south winds play,
where long nights hoarsen the shrill weather-vane,
it opens wide its ravens wings, my soul,
freer than in times of mild renewal.


Nothings sweeter to my heart, full of sorrows,
on which the hoar-frost fell in some past time,
O pallid seasons, queens of our clime,


than the changeless look of your pale shadows,
except, two by two, to lay our grief to rest
in some moonless night, on a perilous bed.

Charles Baudelaire

Calm

Have patience, O my sorrow, and be still.
You asked for night: it falls: it is here.
A shadowy atmosphere enshrouds the hill,
to some men bringing peace, to others care.

While the vile human multitude
goes to earn remorse, in servile pleasures play,
under the lash of joy, the torturer, who
is pitiless, Sadness, come, far away:

Give me your hand. See, where the lost years
lean from the balcony in their outdated gear,
where regret, smiling, surges from the watery deeps.

Underneath some archway, the dying light
sleeps, and, like a long shroud trailing from the East,
listen, dear one, listen to the soft onset of night.

Charles Baudelaire

The Love Of Illusion

When I watch you go by, in all your indolence,
To sound of instruments within the echoing hall
Suspending your appeal of lingering harmony,
And showing in your glance the ennui of your soul;

And when I contemplate, in colouring flames of gas,
Your pallid brow enhanced with a morbidity,
Where torches of the evening light a promised dawn,
Abd your alluring eyes, a master's artistry,

I think, how lovely! and how oddly innocent!
Massive remembrance, that great tower raised above,
Crowns her, and oh, her heart, bruised like a softened peach,
Is mellow, like her body, ripe for skilful love.

Are you the fruit of fall, when flavour is supreme?
Funeral vase, that waits for tears in darkened rooms,
Perfume that brings the far oases to our dreams,
Caressing ...

Charles Baudelaire

Song Of The Afternoon

Although your wayward brows
Give you a curious air
Angelic not at all,
Witch of the tempting stare,

I love you with a passion
Terrible and odd,
With the obeisance
Of priest to golden god.

The desert and the woods
Embalm your heavy hair;
Your head takes attitudes
Mysterious and rare.

A censer's faint perfume
Prowls along your skin;
You charm as evening charms,
Warm and shadowy Nymph.

Ah! strongest potions stir me
Less than your idleness,
And you can make the dead
Revive with your caress!

Your hips are amorous
Of back and breasts and thighs,
And ravished by your pose
Are cushions where you lie.

Sometimes to appease
A rage that comes in fits,
Serious one, you squander
Bites...

Charles Baudelaire

Afternoon Song

Though your eyebrows surprise,
and give you an air of strangeness,
which isnt that of the angels,
witch with seductive eyes,

I adore my frivolous girl,
my terrible passion,
with the devotion
of a priest for his idol!

The forest and the desert
perfume your wild hair:
your head has an air
of the enigma, the secret.

Round your flesh, perfume sweet
swirls like a censers cloud:
you bewitch like the twilights shroud,
nymph of shadows and heat.

Ah! The strongest potions made
cant match your idleness,
and you know the caress
that resurrects the dead.

Your hips are enamoured
of your back and your breasts,
and the cushions are ravished
with your poses, so languid.

Sometimes to appease
y...

Charles Baudelaire