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

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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English

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The Sunset Of Romanticism

How beautiful a new sun is when it rises,
flashing out its greeting, like an explosion!
Happy, whoever hails with sweet emotion
its descent, nobler than a dream, to our eyes!


I remember! Ive seen all, flower, furrow, fountain,
swoon beneath its look, like a throbbing heart
Lets run quickly, its late, towards the horizon,
to catch at least one slanting ray as it departs!


But I pursue the vanishing God in vain:
irresistible Night establishes its sway,
full of shudders, black, dismal, cold:


an odour of the tomb floats in the shadow,
at the swamps edge, feet faltering I go,
bruising damp slugs, and unexpected toads.

Charles Baudelaire

Morning Twilight

Reveille was sounding on barrack-squares,
and the wind of dawn blew on lighted stairs.

It was the hour when a swarm of evil visions
torments swarthy adolescents, when pillows hum:
when, a bloodshot eye, throbbing and quivering,
the lamp makes a reddened stain on the morning:
when the soul, by dull sour body, bowed down,
enacts the struggle between lamp and dawn.
Like a tearful face that the breeze wipes dry,
the airs filled with the frisson of things that fly,
and man is tired of writing, woman with loving.

The chimneys, here and there, began smoking.
The women of pleasure, with their bleary eyes,
and gaping mouths, were sleeping stupefied:
poor old women, with chilled and meagre breasts,
blew the embers, then fingers, roused from rest.
It was the...

Charles Baudelaire

Elevation

Above the ponds, beyond the valleys,
The woods, the mountains, the clouds, the seas,
Farther than the sun, the distant breeze,
The spheres that wilt to infinity

My spirit, you move with agility
And, like a good swimmer who swoons in the wave
You groove the depths immensity gave,
The inexpressible and male ecstasy.

>From this miasma of waste,
You will be purified in superior air
And drink a pure and divine liqueur,
A clear fire to replace the limpid space

Behind this boredom and fatigue, this vast chagrin
Whose weight moves the mists of existence,
Happy is he who vigorously fans the senses
Toward serene and luminous fields - wincing!

The one whose thoughts are like skylarks taken wing
Across the heavens mornings in full flight

Charles Baudelaire

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

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

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