Charles Baudelaire

In the muddy maze of some old neighborhood, Often, where the street lamp gleams like blood, As the wind whips the flame, rattles the glass, Where human beings ferment in a stormy mass, One sees a ragpicker knocking against the walls, Paying no heed to the spies of the cops, his thralls, But stumbling like a poet lost in dreams; He pours his heart out in stupendous schemes. He takes great oaths and dictates sublime laws, Casts down the wicked, aids the victims' cause; Beneath the sky, like a vast canopy, He is drunken of his splendid qualities. Yes, these people, plagued by household cares, Bruised by hard work, tormented by their years, Each bent double by the junk he carries, The jumbled vomit of enormous Paris,— They come back, perfumed with the smell of stale Wine-barrels, followed by old comrades, pale From war, mustaches like limp flags, to march With banners, flowers, through the triumphal arch Erected for them, by some magic touch! And in the dazzling, deafening debauch Of bugles, sunlight, of huzzas and drum, Bring glory to the love-drunk folks at home! Even so, wine pours its gold to frivolous Humanity, a shining Pactolus; Then through man's throat of high exploits it sings And by its gifts reigns like authentic kings. To lull these wretches' sloth and drown the hate Of all who mutely die, compassionate, God has created sleep's oblivion; Man added Wine, divine child of the Sun.

My dear, your eyes are weary; Rest them a little while. Assume the languid posture Of pleasure mixed with guile. Outside the talkative fountain Continues night and day Repeating my warm passion In whatever it has to say. The sheer luminous gown The fountain wears Where Phoebe’s very own Color appears Falls like a summer rain Or shawl of tears. Thus your soul ignited By pleasure’s lusts and needs Sprays into heaven’s reaches And dreams of fiery deeds. Then it brims over, dying, And languorous, apart, Drains down some slope and enters The dark well of my heart. The sheer luminous gown The fountain wears Where Phoebe’s very own Color appears Falls like a summer rain Or shawl of tears. O you, whom night enhances, How sweet here at your breasts To hear the eternal sadness Of water that never rests. O moon, o singing fountain, O leaf-thronged night above, You are the faultless mirrors Of my sweet, bitter love. The sheer luminous gown The fountain wears Where Phoebe’s very own Color appears Falls like a summer rain Or shawl of tears.

At my side the Demon writhes forever, Swimming around me like impalpable air; As I breathe, he burns my lungs like fever And fills me with an eternal guilty desire. Knowing my love of Art, he snares my senses, Apearing in woman's most seductive forms, And, under the sneak's plausible pretenses, Lips grow accustomed to his lewd love-charms. He leads me thus, far from the sight of God, Panting and broken with fatigue into The wilderness of Ennui, deserted and broad, And into my bewildered eyes he throws Visions of festering wounds and filthy clothes, And all Destruction's bloody retinue.