Monologue

You are a lovely autumn sky, rose-clear!
But sadness is flowing in me like the sea,
And leaves on my sullen lip, as it disappears,
of its bitter slime the painful memory.


Your hand glides over my numb breast in vain:
what it seeks, dear friend, is a place made raw
by womans ferocious fang and claw, refrain:
seek this heart, the wild beasts tear, no more.


My heart is a palace defiled by the rabble,
they drink, and murder, and clutch each others hair!
About your naked throat a perfume hovers!...


O Beauty, harsh scourge of souls, this is your care!
With your eyes of fire, dazzling as at our feasts,
Burn these scraps to ashes, spared by the beasts!

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.

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Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

English

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You are a pink and lovely autumn sky!
But sadness in me rises like the sea,
And leaves in ebbing only bitter clay
On my sad lip, the smart of memory.

Your hand slides up my fainting breast at will;
But, love, it only finds a ravaged pit
Pillaged by woman's savage tooth and nail.
My heart is lost; the beasts have eaten it.

It is a palace sullied by the rout;
They drink, they pull each others hair, they kill!
A perfume swims around your naked throat! ...

O Beauty, scourge of souls, you want it still!
You with hot eyes that flash in fiery feasts,
Burn up these meagre scraps spared by the beasts!

Charles Baudelaire

The Eyes Of Beauty

You are a sky of autumn, pale and rose;
But all the sea of sadness in my blood
Surges, and ebbing, leaves my lips morose,
Salt with the memory of the bitter flood.

In vain your hand glides my faint bosom o'er,
That which you seek, beloved, is desecrate
By woman's tooth and talon; ah, no more
Seek in me for a heart which those dogs ate.

It is a ruin where the jackals rest,
And rend and tear and glut themselves and slay
A perfume swims about your naked breast!

Beauty, hard scourge of spirits, have your way!
With flame-like eyes that at bright feasts have flared
Burn up these tatters that the beasts have spared!

Charles Baudelaire

To She Who Is Too Light-Hearted

Your head, your gesture, your air,
are lovely, like a lovely landscape:
laughters alive, in your face,
a fresh breeze in a clear atmosphere.

The dour passer-by you brush past there,
is dazzled by health in flight,
flashing like a brilliant light
from your arms and shoulders.

The resounding colours
with which you sprinkle your dress,
inspire the spirits of poets
with thoughts of dancing flowers.

Those wild clothes are the emblem
of your brightly-hued mind:
madcap by whom Im terrified,
I hate you, and love you, the same!

Sometimes in a lovely garden
where I trailed my listlessness,
Ive felt the sunlight sear my breast
like some ironic weapon:

and Springs green presence
brought such humiliation
Ive ...

Charles Baudelaire

Autumn Song

I.

Now will we plunge into the frigid dark,
The living light of summer gone too soon!
A1ready I can hear a dismal sound,
The thump of logs on courtyard paving stones.

All winter comes into my being: wrath,
Hate, chills and horror, forced and plodding work,
And like the sun in polar underground
My heart will be a red and frozen block.

I Shudder as I hear each log that drops;
A gallows being built makes no worse sound.
My mind is like the tower that succumbs,
Under a heavy engine battered down.

It seems to me, dull with this constant thud,
That someone nails a coffin, but for whom?
Yesterday summer, now the fall! something
With all this eerie pounding will be gone.


II.

I love the greenish light in your long eye...

Charles Baudelaire

Autumn Sonnet

I hear them say to me, your crystal eyes,
'Strange love, what merit do you find in me?'
Be charming and be still! My heart, disturbed
By all except the candour of the flesh

Prefers to hide the secret of its hell
From you whose hand would rock me into sleep,
Nor will it show the legend writ with flame.
Passion I hate, and spirit plays me false!

Let us love gently. Eros in his den,
Hiding in sombre ambush, bends his bow.
I know his arsenal, his worn-out bolts,

Crime, madness, horror-oh pale marguerite,
Are we not both like the autumnal sun,
My o so cool, my fading Marguerite?

Charles Baudelaire

Sonnet Of Autumn

They say to me, thy clear and crystal eyes:
"Why dost thou love me so, strange lover mine?"
Be sweet, be still! My heart and soul despise
All save that antique brute-like faith of thine;

And will not bare the secret of their shame
To thee whose hand soothes me to slumbers long,
Nor their black legend write for thee in flame!
Passion I hate, a spirit does me wrong.

Let us love gently. Love, from his retreat,
Ambushed and shadowy, bends his fatal bow,
And I too well his ancient arrows know:

Crime, horror, folly. O pale marguerite,
Thou art as I, a bright sun fallen low,
O my so white, my so cold Marguerite.

Charles Baudelaire