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 أزهار الشـــــــــــــر Les Fleurs du Mal
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The Voyage
by Charles Baudelaire
for T. S. Eliot
For the boy playing with his globe and stamps,
the world is equal to his appetite--
how grand the world in the blaze of the lamps,
how petty in tomorrow's small dry light!
One morning we lift anchor, full of brave
prejudices, prospects, ingenuity--
we swing with the velvet swell of the wave,
our infinite is rocked by the fixed sea.
Some wish to fly a cheapness they detest,
others, their cradles' terror -- others stand
with their binoculars on a woman's breast,
reptilian Circe with her junk and wand.
Not to be turned to reptiles, such men daze
themselves with spaces, light, the burning sky;
cold toughens them, they bronze in the sun's blaze
and dry the sores of their debauchery.
But the true voyagers are those who move
simply to move -- like lost balloons! Their heart
is some old motor thudding in one groove.
It says its single phrase, "Let us depart!"
They are like conscripts lusting for the guns;
our sciences have never learned to tag
their projects and designs -- enormous, vague
hopes grease the wheels of these automatons!
II
We imitate, oh horror! tops and bowls
in their eternal waltzing marathon;
even in sleep, our fever whips and rolls--
like a black angel flogging the brute sun.
Strange sport! where destination has no place
or name, and may be anywhere we choose--
where man, committed to his endless race,
runs like a madman diving for repose!
Our soul is a three-master seeking port;
a voice from starboard shouts, "We're at the dock!"
Another, more elated, cries from port,
"Here's dancing, gin and girls!" Balls! it's a rock!
The islands sighted by the lookout seem
the El Dorados promised us last night;
imagination wakes from its drugged dream,
sees only ledges in the morning light.
Poor lovers of exotic Indias,
shall we throw you in chains or in the sea?
Sailors discovering new Americas
who drown in a mirage of agony!
The worn-out sponge, who scuffles through our slums
sees whiskey, paradise and liberty
wherever oil-lamps shine in furnished rooms--
we see Blue Grottoes, Caesar and Capri.
III
Stunningly simple tourists, your pursuit
is written in the tear-drops in your eyes!
Spread out the packing cases of your loot,
your azure sapphires made of seas and skies!
We want to break the boredom of our jails
and cross the oceans without oars or steam--
give its visions to stretch our minds like sails,
the blue, exotic shoreline of your dream!
Tell us, what have you seen?
IV
"We've seen the stars,
a wave or two -- we've also seen some sand;
although we peer through telescopes and spars,
we're often deadly bored as you on land.
The shine of sunlight on the violet sea,
the roar of cities when the sun goes down:
these stir our hearts with restless energy;
we worship the Indian Ocean where we drown!
No old chateau or shrine besieged by crowds
of crippled pilgrims sets our soul on fire,
as these chance countries gathered from the clouds.
Our hearts are always anxious with desire.
(Desire, that great elm fertilized by lust,
gives its old body, when the heaven warms
its bark that winters and old age encrust;
green branches draw the sun into its arms.
Why are you always growing taller, Tree--
Oh longer-lived than cypress!) Yet we took
one or two sketches for your picture-book,
Brothers who sell your souls for novelty!
We have salaamed to pagan gods with horns,
entered shrines peopled by a galaxy
of Buddhas, Slavic saints, and unicorns,
so rich Rothschild must dream of bankruptcy!
Priests' robes that scattered solid golden flakes,
dancers with tattooed bellies and behinds,
charmers supported by braziers of snakes . . ."
V
Yes, and what else?
VI
Oh trivial, childish minds!
You've missed the more important things that we
were forced to learn against our will. We've been
from top to bottom of the ladder, and see
only the pageant of immortal sin :
there women, servile, peacock-tailed, and coarse,
marry for money, and love without disgust
horny, pot-bellied tyrants stuffed on lust,
slaves' slaves -- the sewer in which their gutter pours!
old maids who weep, playboys who live each hour,
state banquets loaded with hot sauces, blood and trash,
ministers sterilized by dreams of power,
workers who love their brutalizing lash;
and everywhere religions like our own
all storming heaven, propped by saints who reign
like sybarites on beds of nails and frown--
all searching for some orgiastic pain!
Many, self-drunk, are lying in the mud--
mad now, as they have always been, they roll
in torment screaming to the throne of God:
"My image and my Lord, I hate your soul!"
And others, dedicated without hope,
flee the dull herd -- each locked in his own world
hides in his ivory-tower of art and dope--
this is the daily news from the whole world!
VII
How sour the knowledge travellers bring away!
The world's monotonous and small; we see
ourselves today, tomorrow, yesterday,
an oasis of horror in sands of ennui!
Shall we move or rest? Rest, if you can rest;
move if you must. One runs, but others drop
and trick their vigilant antagonist.
Time is a runner who can never stop,
the Wandering Jew or Christ's Apostles. Yet
nothing's enough; no knife goes through the ribs
of this retarius throwing out its net;
others can kill and never leave their cribs.
And even when Time's heel is on our throat
we still can hope, still cry, "On, on, let's go!"
Just as we once took passage on the boat
for China, shivering as we felt the blow,
so we now set our sails for the Dead Sea,
light-hearted as the youngest voyager.
If you look seaward, Traveller, you will see
a spectre rise and hear it sing, "Stop, here,
and eat my lotus-flowers, here's where they're sold.
Here are the fabulous fruits; look, my boughs bend;
eat yourself sick on knowledge. Here we hold
time in our hands, it never has to end."
We know the accents of this ghost by heart;
our comrade spreads his arms across the seas;
"On, on, Orestes. Sail and feast your heart--
Here's Clytemnestra." Once we kissed her knees.
VIII
It's time. Old Captain, lift anchor, sink!
The land rots; we shall sail into the night;
if now the sky and sea are black as ink
our hearts, as you must know, are filled with light.
Only when we drink poison are we well--
we want, this fire so burns our brain tissue,
to drown in the abyss -- heaven or hell,
who cares? Through the unknown, we'll find the new.
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Re: أزهار الشـــــــــــــر Les Fleurs du Mal (Re: sentimental)
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The Sonnet of Autumn
They say to me, thy clear and crystal eyes :
"Why dost thou love me so, strange lover mine?"
--Be sweet, be Still! My heart and soul despise
All save that antique brute-like faith of thine;
And will not bare the secret of their shame
To thee whose hand soothes me to slumbers long,
Nor their black legend written out in flame!
Passion I hate, and spirit does me wrong.
Let us love gently. Love, from his retreat,
Ambushed and shadowy, bends his fatal bow,
And I too well his ancient arrows know:
Crime, horror, folly. O pale Marguerite,
Thou art as I, an autumn sun brought low,
O my so white, my so cold Marguerite.
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Re: أزهار الشـــــــــــــر Les Fleurs du Mal (Re: sentimental)
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To the reader
Folly, error, sin and parsimony
Preoccupy our spirits and work on our bodies
Feeding our consciences
Like beggars nourishing their lice.
Our sins are stubborn, our repentance weak
We make ourselves pay handsomely for each confession
And happily rejoin the muddy path
Believing our base tears can wash away the stains.
On the pillow of evil, Satan Trismegistus
Cradles at length our enchanted soul
And the rich metal of our will
Is boiled away by that artful chemist.
It is the Devil who holds the threads that move us!
It is in hateful objects that we find peace;
Each day, one step further towards Hell
Without horror, through the stinking shadows.
Like a poor sinner who kisses and consumes
The tortured breast of an ancient whore,
We steal in passing a clandestine joy
We squeeze as strongly as a withered fruit.
Serried, seething, like a million ants
In our brains riots a Demon horde
And, when we breathe, Death in our lungs
Descends, a sightless river, with deaf moans.
If rape and poison, arson and the knife
Have not yet woven their pleasant designs
On the dull canvas of our lowly destinies
It is because our soul, alas, is not yet bold enough!
But among the jackals, panthers and chimerae
The monkeys, scorpions, vultures and the snakes
The monsters yelping, shouting, grunting, crawling
In the ill-famed menagerie of all our vices
Is one more ugly, evil, fouler than the rest
Making no grand gestures or great cries
Yet it would gladly lay waste to the earth
And with a yawn would swallow up the world
And it is Boredom! Eye laden with involuntary tears,
Dreaming of scaffolds, pulls upon its pipe
You know it, reader, this delicate monster
- Hypocrite reader, - my likeness, - my brother!
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Re: أزهار الشـــــــــــــر Les Fleurs du Mal (Re: sentimental)
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GET DRUNK
One should always be drunk. That's all that matters;
that's our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time's
horrible burden one which breaks your shoulders and bows
you down, you must get drunk without cease.
But with what?
With wine, poetry, or virtue
as you choose.
But get drunk.
And if, at some time, on steps of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the bleak solitude of your room,
you are waking and the drunkeness has already abated,
ask the wind, the wave, the stars, the clock,
all that which flees,
all that which groans,
all that which rolls,
all that which sings,
all that which speaks,
ask them, what time it is;
and the wind, the wave, the stars, the birds, and the clock,
they will all reply:
"It is time toget drunk!
So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time,
get drunk, get drunk,
and never pause for rest!
With wine, poetry, or vitrtue,
as you choose!"
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Re: أزهار الشـــــــــــــر Les Fleurs du Mal (Re: sentimental)
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Obsession
You forests, like cathedrals, are my dread:
You roar like organs. Our curst hearts, like cells
Where death forever rattles on the bed,
Echo your de Profudis as it sweels.
My spirit hates you, Ocean ! sees, and loathes
Its tumults in your own. Of men defeated
The bitter laugh, that's full of sobs and oaths,
Is in your own tremendously repeated.
How you would please me, Night ! without your stars
Which speak a foreign dialect, that jars
On one who seeks the void, the black, the bare.
Yet even your darkest shade a canvas forms
Whereon my eye must multiply in swarms
Familiar looks of shapes no longer there.
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Re: أزهار الشـــــــــــــر Les Fleurs du Mal (Re: sentimental)
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The Sadness of the Moon
The Moon more indolently dreams tonight
Than a fair woman on her couch at rest,
Caressing, with a hand distraught and light,
Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast.
Upon her silken avalanche of down,
Dying she breathes a long and swooning sigh;
And watches the white visions past her flown,
Which rise like blossoms to the azure sky.
And when, at times, wrapped in her languor deep,
Earthward she lets a furtive tear-drop flow,
Some pious poet, enemy of sleep,
Takes in his hollow hand the tear of snow
Whence gleams of iris and of opal start,
And hides it from the Sun, deep in his heart.
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فيس بوك
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يوتيوب
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