The Ideal

It will not be these beauties of vignettes,
Poor products of a worthless century,
Feet in half-boots, fingers in castanets,
Who satisfy the yearning heart in me.

That poet of chlorosis, Gavarni,
Can keep his twittering troupe of sickly queens,
Since these pale roses do not let me see
My red ideal, the tlower of my dreams.

I need a heart abyssal in its depth,
A soul confirmed in crime, Lady Macbeth,
Aeschylus' dream, storm-born out of the south,

Or you, great Night of Michelangelo's,
Who calmly twist in an exotic pose
Those charms he fashioned for a Titan's mouth.

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

The Murderer's Wine

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

Hymn

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

Man And The Sea

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

The Flask

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 Beacons

Ubens, oblivious garden of indolence,
Pillow of cool flesh where no man dreams of love,
Where life flows forth in troubled opulence,
As airs in heaven and seas in ocean move.

Leonard Da Vinci, sombre and fathomless glass,
Where lovely angels with calm lips that smile,
Heavy with mystery, in the shadow pass,
Among the ice and pines that guard some isle.

Rembrandt, sad hospital that a murmuring fills,
Where one tall crucifix hangs on the walls,
Where every tear-drowned prayer some woe distils,
And one cold, wintry ray obliquely falls.

Strong Michelangelo, a vague far place
Where mingle Christs with pagan Hercules;
Thin phantoms of the great through twilight pace,
And tear their shroud with clenched hands void of ease.

The fighter's anger,...

Charles Baudelaire

The Little Old Women

for Victor Hugo

I.

In sinuous coils of the old capitals
Where even horror weaves a magic spell,
Gripped by my fatal humours, I observe
Singular beings with appalling charms.

These dislocated wrecks were women once,
Were Eponine or Lais! hunchbacked freaks,
Though broken let us love them! they are souls.
Under cold rags, their shredded petticoats,

They creep, lashed by the merciless north wind,
Quake from the riot of an omnibus,
Clasp by their sides like relics of a saint
Embroidered bags of flowery design;

They toddle, every bit like marionettes,
Or drag themselves like wounded animals,
Or dance against their will, poor little bells
That a remorseless demon rings! Worn out

They are, yet they have eyes piercing like...

Charles Baudelaire

Landscape

In order to write my chaste verses Ill lie
like an astrologer near to the sky
and, by the bell-towers, listen in dream
to their solemn hymns on the air-stream.
Hands on chin, from my attics height
Ill see the workshops of song and light,
the gutters, the belfries those masts of the city,
the vast skies that yield dreams of eternity

It is sweet to see stars being born in the blue,
through the mists, the lamps at the windows, too,
the rivers of smoke climbing the firmament,
and the moon pouring out her pale enchantment.
Ill see the springs, summers, autumns glow,
and when winter brings the monotonous snow
Ill close all my doors and shutters tight
and build palaces of faery in the night.
Then Ill dream of blue-wet horizons,
weeping fountains of ...

Charles Baudelaire

Landscape

So as to write my eclogues in the purest verse
I wish to lay me down, like the astrologers,
Next to the sky, and hear in reverie the hymns
Of all the neighbouring belfries, carried on the wind.
My two hands to my chin, up in my attic room,
I'll see the atelier singing a babbled tune;
The chimney-pipes, the steeples, all the city's masts,
The great, inspiring skies, magnificent and vast.

How sweet it is to see, across the misty gloom,
A star born in the blue, a lamp lit in a room,
Rivers of chimney smoke, rising in purplish streams,
The pale of glow of the moon, transfiguring the scene.
I will look out on springs and summers, autumn's show,
And when the winter comes, in monotone of snow,
I'll lock up all the doors and shutters neat and tight,
And build a fairy...

Charles Baudelaire

Beatrice

Through fields of ash, burnt, without verdure,
where I was complaining one day to Nature,
and slowly sharpened the knife of my thought,
as I wandered aimlessly, against my heart,
I saw descend, at noon, on my brow,
a storm-filled and a sinister cloud,
holding a vicious demonic horde,
resembling cruel, and curious dwarfs.
They gazing at me, considering me, as cool
as passers-by admiring a fool,
I heard them laughing and whispering in synch,
exchanging many a nudge and a wink:

 Lets contemplate this caricature,
this Hamlets shadow, echoing his posture,
his indecisive looks, and wild hair.
Its a shame to see that epicure there,
that pauper, that actor on holiday, that droll
fellow, because he can play a fine role,
trying to interest with his t...

Charles Baudelaire

Parisian Dream

for Constantin Guys

Of this strange, awe-inspiring scene
Such as on earth one never sees,
Today the image once again,
Obscure and distant, captures me.

Sleep is so full of miracles!
By whimsy odd and singular
I've banished from these spectacles
Nature and the irregular.

And, happy with my artistry,
I painted into my tableau
The ravishing monotony
Of marble, metal, water-flow.

Babel of endless stairs, arcades,
It was a palace multifold
Replete with pools and bright cascades
Falling in dull or burnished gold;

And the more weighty waterfalls
Like crystal screens resplendent there
Along the metal rampart walls
Seemed to suspend themselves in air;

The sleeping pools - there were no trees
Gathered aro...

Charles Baudelaire