The Living Flame

They pass before me, these Eyes full of light,
Eyes made magnetic by some angel wise;
The holy brothers pass before my sight,
And cast their diamond fires in my dim eyes.

They keep me from all sin and error grave,
They set me in the path whence Beauty came;
They are my servants, and I am their slave,
And all my soul obeys the living flame.

Beautiful Eyes that gleam with mystic light
As candles lighted at full noon; the sun
Dims not your flame phantastical and bright.

You sing the dawn; they celebrate life done;
Marching you chaunt my soul's awakening hymn,
Stars that no sun has ever made grow dim!

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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Reversibility

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

English

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The Living Torch

They march ahead, those brilliant Eyes in you
A master Angel doubtless magnetized;
They march, those holy twins, my brothers too,
Raising a gem-like flame within my eyes.

From all the snares and deadly sins they save
Me, and they lead my steps in Beauty's way;
They are my servants, yet I am their slave;
This living torch makes all my heart obey.

Fair eyes, you glimmer with the secret rays
Of tapers lit at noon; in growing red
The sun does not put out their mystic blaze;

You sing Awakening, they praise the Dead;
You march and wake with song this soul of mine,
Stars of a flame the sun can not outshine!

Charles Baudelaire

Hymn To Beauty

O Beauty! do you visit from the sky
Or the abyss? infernal and divine,
Your gaze bestows both kindnesses and crimes,
So it is said you act on us like wine.

Your eye contains the evening and the dawn;
You pour out odours like an evening storm;
Your kiss is potion from an ancient jar,
That can make heroes cold and children warm.

Are you of heaven or the nether world?
Charmed Destiny, your pet, attends your walk;
You scatter joys and sorrows at your whim,
And govern all, and answer no man's call.

Beauty, you walk on corpses, mocking them;
Horror is charming as your other gems,
And Murder is a trinket dancing there
Lovingly on your naked belly's skin.

You are a candle where the mayfly dies
In flames, blessing this fire's deadly bloom.<...

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

The Possessed

The sun is wrapped within a pall of mist,
Moon of my life! enshroud yourself like him;
Sleep, damp your fires; be silent, dim,
And plunge to ennui's most profound abyss;

I love you this way! But, if you decline,
And choose to move from your eclipse to light,
To strut yourself where Folly throngs tonight,
Spring, charming dagger, from your sheath! That's fine!

Light up your eyes with flames of candle glow!
Light up the lust in yokels at the show!
I love your moods, no one of them the best;

Be night or dawn, do what you want to do;
I cry in every fibre of my flesh:
'0 my Beelzebub, I worship you!'

Charles Baudelaire

Berthas Eyes

You can scorn more illustrious eyes,
sweet eyes of my child, through which there takes flight
something as good or as tender as night.
Turn to mine your charmed shadows, sweet eyes!

Great eyes of a child, adorable secrets,
you resemble those grottoes of magic
where, behind the dark and lethargic,
shine vague treasures the world forgets.

My child has veiled eyes, profound and vast,
and shining like you, Night, immense, above!
Their fires are of Trust, mixed with thoughts of Love,
that glitter in depths, voluptuous or chaste.

Charles Baudelaire

The Spiritual Dawn

When white and ruby dawn among the rakes
Breaks in, she's with the harrying Ideal,
And by some strange retributive appeal
Within the sleepy brute, an angel wakes.

The perfect blue of Spiritual Skies
For the lost man who dreams and suffers, this
Pierces him, fascinates like the abyss.
And so, dear Goddess, lucid, pure and wise,

Over debris the orgies leave behind
Your memory, more rosy, more divine
Constantly flickers in my vision's sight.

The sun has blackened candles of the night;
Your phantom does the same, o conquering one,
Resplendent soul, of the immortal sun!

Charles Baudelaire