The Bad Monk

On the great walls of ancient cloisters were nailed
Murals displaying Truth the saint,
Whose effect, reheating the pious entrails
Brought to an austere chill a warming paint.

In the times when Christ was seeded around,
More than one illustrious monk, today unknown
Took for a studio the funeral grounds
And glorified Death as the one way shown.

My soul is a tomb, an empty confine
Since eternity I scour and I reside;
Nothing hangs on the walls of this hideous sty.

O lazy monk! When will I see
The living spectacle of my misery,
The work of my hands and the love of my eyes?

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

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Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

English

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The Evil Monk

The ancient cloisters on their lofty walls
Had holy Truth in painted frescoes shown,
And, seeing these, the pious in those halls
Felt their cold, lone austereness less alone.

At that time when Christ's seed flowered all around,
More than one monk, forgotten in his hour,
Taking for studio the burial ground,
Glorified Death with simple faith and power.

And my soul is a sepulchre where I,
Ill cenobite, have spent eternity:
On the vile cloister walls no pictures rise.

O when may I cast off this weariness,
And make the pageant of my old distress
For these hands labour, pleasure for these eyes?

Charles Baudelaire

The Wretched Monk

Old monasteries under steadfast walls
Displayed tableaux of holy Verity,
Warming the inner men in those cold halls
Against the chill of their austerity.

Those times, when seeds of Christ would thrive and grow,
More than one monk, now in obscurity,
Taking the graveyard as his studio,
Ennobled Death, in all simplicity.

My soul's a tomb that, wretched cenobite,
I travel in throughout eternity;
Nothing adorns the walls of this sad shrine

O slothful monk! Oh, when may I assign
This living spectacle of misery
To labour of my hands, my eyes' delight?

Charles Baudelaire

The Death Of Artists

How many times must I jingle my little bells
And kiss your ugly forehead, shabby substitute?
How many, 0 my quiver, spears and bolts to lose
Trying to hit the target, nature's mystic self?

We will wear out our souls concocting subtle schemes,
And we'll be wrecking heavy armatures we've done
Before we gaze upon the great and wondrous One,
For whom we've often sobbed, wracked by the devil's dreams!

But some have never known their Idol face to face
These poor, accursed sculptors, marked by their disgrace,
Who go to beat themselves about the breast and brow,

Have only but a hope, strange sombre Capitol!
It is that Death, a new and hovering sun, will find
A way to bring to bloom the flowers of their minds!

Charles Baudelaire

A Martyr

Surrounded by flasks, and by spangled lames,
All matter of sumptuous goods,
Marble sculptures, fine paintings, and perfumed peignoirs
That trail in voluptuous folds,

In a room like a greenhouse, both stuffy and warm,
An atmosphere heavy with death,
Where arrangements of flowers encoffined in glass
Exhale their ultimate breath,

A headless cadaver spills out like a stream
On a pillow adorning the bed,
A flow of red blood, which the linen drinks up
With a thirsty meadow's greed.

Like pale apprehensions born in the dark,
And that enchain the eyes,
The head - the pile of its ebony mane
With precious jewels entwined

On the night table, like a ranunculus
Reposes; and a gaze,
Mindless and vague and as black as the dusk
Escapes fr...

Charles Baudelaire

The Game

Old courtesans in washed-out armchairs,
pale, eyebrows blacked, eyes tender, fatal,
simpering still, and from their skinny ears
loosing their waterfalls of stone and metal:


Round the green baize, faces without lips,
lips without blood, jaws without the rest,
clawed fingers that the hellish fever grips,
fumbling an empty pocket, heaving breast:


below soiled ceilings, rows of pallid lights,
and huge candelabras shed their glimmer,
across the brooding brows of famous poets:
here its their blood and sweat they squander:


this the dark tableau of nocturnal dream
my clairvoyant eye once watched unfold.
In an angle of that silent lair, I leaned
hard on my elbows, envious, mute, and cold,


yes, envying that crews ten...

Charles Baudelaire

Gaming

In faded chairs, the pale old courtesans,
Eyebrows painted, eye of fatal calm,
Smirking, and letting drop from skinny ears
Those jingling sounds of metal and of stone;

Around green cloth, the faces without lips,
Lips without colour over toothless jaws,
And fingers twisted by infernal fires,
Digging in pockets, or in panting breast;

Under the filthy ceilings, chandeliers
And lamps of oil doling out their glow
Over the brilliant poets' gloomy brows,
Who come to squander here their bloody sweat;

This is the black tableau that in my dream
I see unroll before my prescient eye.
There in an idle corner of that den
I see myself-cold, mute, and envying,

Envious of these men's tenacious lust,
The morbid gaiety of these old whores,
Traff...

Charles Baudelaire