The Marksman

As the carriage traversed the wood he bade the driver draw up in the neighbourhood of a shooting gallery, saying that he would like to have a few shots to kill time. Is not the slaying of the monster Time the most ordinary and legitimate occupation of man?
So he gallantly offered his hand to his dear, adorable, and execrable wife; the mysterious woman to whom he owed so many pleasures, so many pains, and perhaps also a great part of his genius.
Several bullets went wide of the proposed mark, one of them flew far into the heavens, and as the charming creature laughed deliriously, mocking the clumsiness of her husband, he turned to her brusquely and said: "Observe that doll yonder, to the right, with its nose in the air, and with so haughty an appearance. Very well, dear angel, I will imagine to myself that it is you!"
He closed both eyes and pulled the trigger. The doll was neatly decapitated.
Then, bending towards his dear, adorable, and execrable wife, his inevitable and pitiless muse, he kissed her respectfully upon the hand, and added,
"Ah, dear angel, how I thank you for my skill!"

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

A Beatrice

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

The Soul Of Wine

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

The Giantess

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

Allegory

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.

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

A Phantom

I. The Blackness

In vaults of fathomless obscurity
Where Destiny has sentenced me for life;
Where cheerful rosy beams may never shine;
Where, living with that sullen hostess, Night,

I am an artist that a mocking God
Condemns, alas! to paint the gloom itself;
Where like a cook with ghoulish appetite
I boil and devour my own heart,

Sometimes there sprawls, and stretches out, and glows
A splendid ghost, of a surpassing charm,
And when this vision growing in my sight

In oriental languor, like a dream,
Is fully formed, I know the phantom's name:
Yes, it is She! though black, yet full oflight.


II. The Perfume

During your lifetime, reader, have you breathed,
Slow-savouring to the point of dizziness,
That grain of in...

Charles Baudelaire

The Shooting-Range And The Cemetery.

"Cemetery View Inn" "A queer sign," said our traveller to himself; "but it raises a thirst! Certainly the keeper -o f this inn appreciates Horace and the poet pupils of Epicurus. Perhaps he even apprehends the profound philosophy of those old Egyptians who had no feast without its skeleton, or some emblem of life's brevity."
He entered: drank a glass of beer in presence of the tombs; and slowly smoked a cigar. Then, his phantasy driving him, he went down into the cemetery, where the grass was so tall and inviting; so brilliant in the sunshine.
The light and heat, indeed, were so furiously intense that one had said the drunken sun wallowed upon a carpet of flowers that had fattened upon the corruption beneath.
The air was heavy with vivid rumours of life the life of things infinitely small and broken at intervals by the crac...

Charles Baudelaire

As The Author Was Discharging His Pistols In A Garden, Two Ladies Passing Near The Spot, Were Alarmed By The Sound Of A Bullet Hissing Near Them. To One Of Whom The Following Verses On The Occasion, Were Addressed The Next Morning.

1.

Doubtless, sweet girl, the hissing lead,
Wafting destruction near thy charms,
And hurtling^[1] o'er thy lovely head,
Has fill'd that breast with fond alarms.

2.

Surely some envious Demon's force,
Vex'd to behold such beauty here,
Impell'd the bullet's viewless course,
Diverted from its first career.

3.

Yes! in that nearly fatal hour,
The ball obey'd some hell-born guide,
But Heaven with interposing power,
In pity turn'd the death aside.

4.

Yet, as perchance one trembling tear,
Upon that thrilling bosom fell,
Which I, th' unconscious cause of fear,
Extracted from its glistening cell; -

5.

Say, what dire penance can atone?
For such an outrage done to thee,
Arrai...

George Gordon Byron

The Passing

It was the hour of dawn,
When the heart beats thin and small,
The window glimmered grey,
Framed in a shadow wall.

And in the cold sad light
Of the early morningtide,
The dear dead girl came back
And stood by his bedside.

The girl he lost came back:
He saw her flowing hair;
It flickered and it waved
Like a breath in frosty air.

As in a steamy glass,
Her face was dim and blurred;
Her voice was sweet and thin,
Like the calling of a bird.

'You said that you would come,
You promised not to stay;
And I have waited here,
To help you on the way.

'I have waited on,
But still you bide below;
You said that you would come,
And oh, I want you so!

'For half my soul is here,
And half my soul is ...

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Laboratory

ANCIEN RÉGIME.


I.

Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
May gaze thro these faint smokes curling whitely,
As thou pliest thy trade in this devils-smithy,
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?

II.

He is with her, and they know that I know
Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow
While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear
Empty church, to pray God in, for them! I am here.

III.

Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste,
Pound at thy powder, I am not in haste!
Better sit thus, and observe thy strange things,
Than go where men wait me and dance at the Kings.

IV.

That in the mortar, you call it a gum?
Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come!
...

Robert Browning