[THREE POEMS FROM BAUDELAIRE]
Translated by Richard Herne Shepherd
I
A CARCASS
Recall to mind the sight we saw, my soul,
That soft, sweet summer day:
Upon a bed of flints a carrion foul,
Just as we turn'd the way
Its legs erected, wanton-like, in air,
Burning and sweating past,
In unconcern'd and cynic sort laid bare
To view its noisome breast.
The sun lit up the rottenness with gold,
To bake it well inclined,
And give great Nature back a hundredfold
All she together join'd.
The sky regarded as the carcass proud
Oped flower-like to the day;
So strong the odour, on the grass you vow'd
You thought to faint away.
The flies the putrid belly buzz'd about,
Whence black battalions throng
Of maggots, like thick liquid flowing out
The living rags along.
And as a wave they mounted and went down,
Or darted sparkling wide:
As if the body, by a wild breath blown,
Lived as it multiplied.
From all this life a music strange there ran,
Like wind and running burns:
Or like the wheat a winnower in his fan
With rhythmic movement turns.
The forms wore off, and as a dream grew faint,
An outline dimly shown,
And which the artist finishes to paint
From memory alone.
Behind the rocks watch'd us with angry eye
A bitch disturb'd in theft,
Waiting to take, till we had pass'd her by
The morsel she had left.
Yet you will be like that corruption too,
Like that infection prove—
Star of my eyes, sun of my nature, you,
My angel and my love!
Queen of the graces, you will even be so,
When, the last ritual said,
Beneath the grass and the fat flowers you go,
To mould among the dead.
Then, O my beauty, tell the insatiate worm,
Who wastes you with his kiss,
I have kept the godlike essence and the form
Of perishable bliss!
II
WEEPING AND WANDERING
Say, Agatha, if at times your spirit turns
Far from the black sea of the city's mud,
To another ocean, where the splendour burns
All blue, and clear, and deep as maidenhood?
Say, Agatha, if your spirit thither turns?
The boundless sea consoles the weary mind!
What demon gave the sea—that chantress hoarse
To the huge organ of the chiding wind—
The function grand to rock us like a nurse?
The boundless ocean soothes the jaded mind!
O car and frigate, bear me far away,
For here our tears moisten the very clay.
Is't true that Agatha's sad heart at times
Says, far from sorrows, from remorse, from crimes,
Remove me, car, and, frigate, bear away?
O perfumed paradise, how far removed,
Where 'neath a clear sky all is love and joy,
Where all we love is worthy to be loved,
And pleasure drowns the heart, but does not cloy.
O perfumed paradise, so far removed!
But the green paradise of childlike loves,
The walks, the songs, the kisses, and the flowers,
The violins dying behind the hills, the hours
Of evening and the wine-flasks in the groves.
But the green paradise of early loves,
The innocent paradise, full of stolen joys,
Is't farther off than ev'n the Indian main?
Can we recall it with our plaintive cries,
Or give it life, with silvery voice, again,
The innocent paradise, full of furtive joys?
III
LESBOS
Mother of Latin sports and Greek delights,
Where kisses languishing or pleasureful,
Warm as the suns, as the water-melons cool,
Adorn the glorious days and sleepless nights,
Mother of Latin sports and Greek delights.
Lesbos, where kisses are as waterfalls
That fearless into gulfs unfathom'd leap,
Now run with sobs, now slip with gentle brawls,
Stormy and secret, manifold and deep;
Lesbos, where kisses are as waterfalls!
Lesbos, where Phryne Phryne to her draws,
Where ne'er a sigh did echoless expire,
As Paphos' equal thee the stars admire,
Nor Venus envies Sappho without cause!
Lesbos, where Phryne Phryne to her draws,
Lesbos, the land of warm and languorous nights,
Where by their mirrors seeking sterile good,
The girls with hollow eyes, in soft delights,
Caress the ripe fruits of their womanhood,
Lesbos, the land of warm and languorous nights.
Leave, leave old Plato's austere eye to frown;
Pardon is thine for kisses' sweet excess,
Queen of the land of amiable renown,
And for exhaustless subtleties of bliss,
Leave, leave old Plato's austere eye to frown.
Pardon is thine for the eternal pain
That on the ambitious hearts for ever lies,
Whom far from us the radiant smile could gain,
Seen dimly on the verge of other skies;
Pardon is thine for the eternal pain!
Which of the gods will dare thy judge to be,
And to condemn thy brow with labour pale,
Not having balanced in his golden scale
The flood of tears thy brooks pour'd in the sea?
Which of the gods will dare thy judge to be?
What boot the laws of just and of unjust?
Great-hearted virgins, honour of the isles,
Lo, your religion also is august,
And love at hell and heaven together smiles!
What boot the laws of just and of unjust?
For Lesbos chose me out from all my peers,
To sing the secret of her maids in flower,
Opening the mystery dark from childhood's hour
Of frantic laughters, mix'd with sombre tears;
For Lesbos chose me out from all my peers.
And since I from Leucate's top survey,
Like a sentinel with piercing eye and true,
Watching for brig and frigate night and day,
Whose distant outlines quiver in the blue,
And since I from Leucate's top survey,
To learn if kind and merciful the sea,
And midst the sobs that make the rock resound,
Brings back some eve to pardoning Lesbos, free
The worshipp'd corpse of Sappho, who made her bound
To learn if kind and merciful the sea!
Of her the man-like lover-poetess,
In her sad pallor more than Venus fair!
The azure eye yields to that black eye, where
The cloudy circle tells of the distress
Of her the man-like lover-poetess!
Fairer than Venus risen on the world,
Pouring the treasures of her aspect mild,
The radiance of her fair white youth unfurl'd
On Ocean old enchanted with his child;
Fairer than Venus risen on the world.
Of Sappho, who, blaspheming, died that day
When trampling on the rite and sacred creed,
She made her body fair the supreme prey
Of one whose pride punish'd the impious deed
Of Sappho who, blaspheming, died that day.
And since that time it is that Lesbos moans,
And, spite the homage which the whole world pays,
Is drunk each night with cries of pain and groans,
Her desert shores unto the heavens do raise,
And since that time it is that Lesbos moans!