Moesta Et Errabunda - (Twelve Translations From Charles Baudelaire)

    Agatha, tell me, does thy heart not ache,
        Plunged in this squalid city's filthy sea,
    For another ocean where the splendours break
        Blue, clear, and deep as is virginity.
    Agatha, tell me, does thy heart not ache?

    The sea, the sea unending, comforts us!
        What demon gave the hoarse old sea who sings
    To her mumbling hurricanes' organ thunderous
        The god-like power to cradle sorrowful things?
    The sea, the sea unending, comforts us.

    Carry me, wagon, bear me, barque, away!
        Far! Far! For here the mud is made of tears!
    Does Agatha's sad heart not sometimes say:
        "O far from shudderings and crimes and fears,
    Carry me, wagon; bear me barque, away?"

    How far thou art, O scented paradise,
        O paradise where all is love and joy,
    Where all is worthy love 'neath the azure skies,
        And the heart drowns in bliss without alloy!
    How far thou art, O scented paradise!

    But the green paradise of childish loves,
        The games, the songs, the kisses and the flowers,
    The laughing draughts of wine in hidden groves,
        The violins throbbing through the twilight hours,
    But the green paradise of childish loves,

    The artless paradise of stealthy joys,
        Is that already leagues beyond Cathay?
    And can one, with a little plaintive noise,
        Bring it again that is so far away,
    The artless paradise of stealthy joys?

John Collings Squire, Sir

John Collings Squire, also known as Sir John Squire, was an influential British poet, writer, historian, and influential literary editor of the early 20th century. He is best known for his role as editor of the London Mercury, a powerful literary journal of the time. Squire was a leading figure in the Georgian poetry movement, which sought to return English poetry to its traditional form and diction.

John Collings Squire, Sir

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English

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Moesta Et Errabunda

Agatha, tell me, could your heart take flight
From this black city, from this filthy sea
Off to some other sea, where splendour might
Burst blue and clear-a new virginity?
Agatha, tell me, could your heart take flight?

The vast sea offers comfort in our pain!
What demon lets the ocean's raucous cry
Above the great wind-organ's grumbling strain
Perform the holy rite of lullaby?
The vast sea offers comfort in our pain!

Frigate or wagon, carry me away!
Away from where the mud is made of tears!
Agatha, can your sad heart sometimes say:
Far from the crimes, remorse, the grief of years,
Frigate or wagon, carry me away!

How distant are you, perfumed paradise,
Where lovers play beneath the blue above,
Where hearts may drown themselves in pure de...

Charles Baudelaire

Echoes

    There is a far unfading city
    Where bright immortal people are;
    Remote from hollow shame and pity,
    Their portals frame no guiding star
    But blightless pleasure's moteless rays
    That follow their footsteps as they dance
    Long lutanied measures through a maze
    Of flower-like song and dalliance.

    There always glows the vernal sun,
    There happy birds for ever sing,
    There faint perfumed breezes run
    Through branches of eternal spring;
    There faces browned and fruit and milk
    And blue-winged words and rose-bloomed kisses
    In galleys gowned with gold and silk
    Shake on a lake of dainty blisses.

    Coyness is not, nor bear they thought,
    Save of a shining gracious flow;
    All natural joys ...

John Collings Squire, Sir

A Voyage To Cythera - (Twelve Translations From Charles Baudelaire)

    My heart was like a bird and took to flight,
        Around the rigging circling joyously;
        The ship rolled on beneath a cloudless sky
    Like a great angel drunken with the light.

    "What is yon isle, sad and funereal?"
        "Cythera famed in deathless song," said they,
        "The gay old bachelors' Eldorado-Nay,
    Look! 'tis a poor bare country after all!"

    Isle of sweet secrets and heart banquetings!
        The queenly shade of antique Venus thrills
        Scentlike above thy level seas and fills
    Our souls with languor and all amorous things.

    Fair isle and of green myrtles and blown flowers
        Held holy by all men for evermore,
        Where the faint sighs of spirits that adore
    Float like rose-incense...

John Collings Squire, Sir

Sappho

She lay among the myrtles on the cliff;
Above her glared the noon; beneath, the sea.
Upon the white horizon Atho's peak
Weltered in burning haze; all airs were dead;
The cicale slept among the tamarisk's hair;
The birds sat dumb and drooping.    Far below
The lazy sea-weed glistened in the sun;
The lazy sea-fowl dried their steaming wings;
The lazy swell crept whispering up the ledge,
And sank again.    Great Pan was laid to rest;
And Mother Earth watched by him as he slept,
And hushed her myriad children for a while.
She lay among the myrtles on the cliff;
And sighed for sleep, for sleep that would not hear,
But left her tossing still; for night and day
A mighty hunger yearned within her heart,
Till all her veins ran fever; and her cheek,
Her long thin h...

Charles Kingsley

The Sadness Of The Moon - (Twelve Translations From Charles Baudelaire)

    This evening the Moon dreams more languidly,
        Like a beauty who on mounded cushions rests,
    And with her light hand fondles lingeringly,
        Before she sleeps, the slope of her sweet breasts.

    On her soft satined avalanches' height
        Dying, she laps herself for hours and hours
    In long, long swoons, and gazes at the white
        Visions which rise athwart the blue like flowers.

    When sometimes in her perfect indolence
    She lets a furtive tear steal gently thence,
        Some pious poet, a lone, sleepless one,

    Takes in his hollowed hand this gem, shot through,
    Like an opal stone, with gleams of every hue,
        And in his heart's depths hides it from the sun.

John Collings Squire, Sir

Music - (Twelve Translations From Charles Baudelaire)

    Oft Music, as it were some moving mighty sea,
        Bears me towards my pale
    Star: in clear space, or 'neath a vaporous canopy
        On-floating, I set sail.

    With heaving chest which strains forward, and lungs outblown,
        I climb the ridgèd steeps
    Of those high-pilèd clouds which 'thwart the night are thrown,
        Veiling its starry deeps.

    I suffer all the throes, within my quivering form,
        Of a great ship in pain,
    Now a soft wind, and now the writhings of a storm

        Upon the vasty main
    Rock me: at other times a death-like calm, the bare
        Mirror of my despair.

John Collings Squire, Sir