The Ghost

Charles Baudelaire

The Ghost (Flowers of Evil)
Le Revenant (Les Fleurs du Mal)

Like angels with wild beast's eyes
I shall return to your bedroom
And silently glide toward you
With the shadows of the night;

And, dark beauty, I shall give you
Kisses cold as the moon
And the caresses of a snake
That crawls around a grave.

When the livid morning comes,
You'll find my place empty,
And it will be cold there till night.

I wish to hold sway over
Your life and youth by fear,
As others do by tenderness.

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

Conversation

Charles Baudelaire

Conversation (Flowers of Evil)
Causerie (Les Fleurs du Mal)

You are a lovely autumn sky, clear and rosy!
But sadness rises in me like the sea,
And as it ebbs, leaves on my sullen lips
The burning memory of its bitter slime.

— In vain does your hand slip over my swooning breast;
What it seeks, darling, is a place plundered
By the claws and the ferocious teeth of woman.
Seek my heart no longer; the beasts have eaten it.

My heart is a palace polluted by the mob;
They get drunk there, kill, tear each other's hair!
— A perfume floats about your naked breast!...

O Beauty, ruthless scourge of souls, you desire it!
With the fire of your eyes, brilliant as festivals,
Bum these tatters which the beasts spared!

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

Cloudy Sky

Charles Baudelaire

Cloudy Sky (Flowers of Evil)
Ciel brouillé (Les Fleurs du Mal)

One would say that your gaze was veiled with mist;
Your mysterious eyes (are they blue, gray or green?)
Alternately tender, dreamy, cruel,
Reflect the indolence and pallor of the sky.

You call to mind those days, white, soft, and mild,
That make enchanted hearts burst into tears,
When, shaken by a mysterious, wracking pain,
The nerves, too wide-awake, jeer at the sleeping mind.

You resemble at times those gorgeous horizons
That the sun sets ablaze in the seasons of mist...
How resplendent you are, landscape drenched with rain,
Aflame with rays that fall from a cloudy sky!

O dangerous woman, O alluring climates!
Will I also adore your snow and your hoar-frost,
And can I draw from your implacable winter
Pleasures keener than iron or ice?

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

Poison

Charles Baudelaire

Poison (Flowers of Evil)
Le Poison (Les Fleurs du Mal)

Wine knows how to adorn the most sordid hovel
With marvelous luxury
And make more than one fabulous portal appear
In the gold of its red mistLike a sun setting in a cloudy sky.

Opium magnifies that which is limitless,
Lengthens the unlimited,
Makes time deeper, hollows out voluptuousness,
And with dark, gloomy pleasures
Fills the soul beyond its capacity.

All that is not equal to the poison which flows
From your eyes, from your green eyes,
Lakes where my soul trembles and sees its evil side...
My dreams come in multitude
To slake their thirst in those bitter gulfs.

All that is not equal to the awful wonder
Of your biting saliva,
Charged with madness, that plunges my remorseless soul
Into oblivion
And rolls it in a swoon to the shores of death.

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

To One Who Is Too Gay

Charles Baudelaire

To One Who Is Too Gay (Flowers of Evil)
A celle qui est trop gaie (Les Fleurs du Mal)

Your head, your bearing, your gestures
Are fair as a fair countryside;
Laughter plays on your face
Like a cool wind in a clear sky.

The gloomy passer-by you meet
Is dazzled by the glow of health
Which radiates resplendently
From your arms and shoulders.

The touches of sonorous color
That you scatter on your dresses
Cast into the minds of poets
The image of a flower dance.

Those crazy frocks are the emblem
Of your multi-colored nature;
Mad woman whom I'm mad about,
I hate and love you equally!

At times in a lovely garden
Where I dragged my atony,
I have felt the sun tear my breast,
As though it were in mockery;

Both the springtime and its verdure
So mortified my heart
That I punished a flower
For the insolence of Nature.

Thus I should like, some night,
When the hour for pleasure sounds,
To creep softly, like a coward,
Toward the treasures of your body,

To whip your joyous flesh
And bruise your pardoned breast,
To make in your astonished flank
A wide and gaping wound,

And, intoxicating sweetness!
Through those new lips,
More bright, more beautiful,
To infuse my venom, my sister!

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

All of Her

Charles Baudelaire

All of Her (Flowers of Evil)
Tout entière (Les Fleurs du Mal)

The Devil into my high room
This morning came to pay a call,
And trying to find me in fault
Said: "I should like to know,

Among all the beautiful things
Which make her an enchantress,
Among the objects black or rose
That compose her charming body,

Which is the sweetest." — O my soul!
You answered the loathsome Creature:
"Since in Her all is dittany,
No single thing can be preferred.

When all delights me, I don't know
If some one thing entrances me.
She dazzles like the Dawn
And consoles like the Night;

And the harmony that governs
Her whole body is too lovely
For impotent analysis
To note its numerous accords.

O mystic metamorphosis
Of all my senses joined in one!
Her breath makes music,
And her voice makes perfume!"

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

Lethe

Charles Baudelaire

Lethe (Flowers of Evil)
Le Léthé (Les Fleurs du Mal)

Come, lie upon my breast, cruel, insensitive soul,
Adored tigress, monster with the indolent air;
I want to plunge trembling fingers for a long time
In the thickness of your heavy mane,

To bury my head, full of pain
In your skirts redolent of your perfume,
To inhale, as from a withered flower,
The moldy sweetness of my defunct love.

I wish to sleep! to sleep rather than live!
In a slumber doubtful as death,
I shall remorselessly cover with my kisses
Your lovely body polished like copper.

To bury my subdued sobbing
Nothing equals the abyss of your bed,
Potent oblivion dwells upon your lips
And Lethe flows in your kisses.

My fate, hereafter my delight,
I'll obey like one predestined;
Docile martyr, innocent man condemned,
Whose fervor aggravates the punishment.

I shall suck, to drown my rancor,
Nepenthe and the good hemlock
From the charming tips of those pointed breasts
That have never guarded a heart.

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954

The Vampire

Charles Baudelaire

The Vampire (Flowers of Evil)
Le Vampire (Les Fleurs du Mal)

You who, like the stab of a knife,
Entered my plaintive heart;
You who, strong as a herd
Of demons, came, ardent and adorned,

To make your bed and your domain
Of my humiliated mind
— Infamous bitch to whom
I'm boundLike the convict to his chain,

Like the stubborn gambler to the game,
Like the drunkard to his wine,
Like the maggots to the corpse,
— Accurst, accurst be you!

I begged the swift poniard
To gain for me my liberty,
I asked perfidious poison
To give aid to my cowardice.

Alas! both poison and the knife
Contemptuously said to me:
"You do not deserve to be freed
From your accursed slavery,

Fool! — if from her domination
Our efforts could deliver you,
Your kisses would resuscitate
The cadaver of your vampire!"

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

The Dancing Serpent

Charles Baudelaire

The Dancing Serpent (Flowers of Evil)
Le Serpent qui danse (Les Fleurs du Mal)

Indolent darling, how I love
To see the skinOf your body so beautiful
Shimmer like silk!

Upon your heavy head of hair
With its acrid scents,
Adventurous, odorant sea
With blue and brown waves,

Like a vessel that awakens
To the morning wind,
My dreamy soul sets sail
For a distant sky.

Your eyes where nothing is revealed
Of bitter or sweet,
Are two cold jewels where are mingledIron and gold.

To see you walking in cadence
With fine abandon,
One would say a snake which dances
On the end of a staff.

Under the weight of indolence
Your child-like head sways
Gently to and fro like the head
Of a young elephant,

And your body stretches and leans
Like a slender ship
That rolls from side to side and dips
Its yards in the sea.

Like a stream swollen by the thaw
Of rumbling glaciers,
When the water of your mouth rises
To the edge of your teeth,

It seems I drink Bohemian wine,
Bitter and conquering,
A liquid sky that scatters
Stars in my heart!

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

You Would Take the Whole World to Bed with You

Charles Baudelaire, French poet

You Would Take the Whole World to Bed with You (Flowers of Evil)
Tu mettrais l'univers entier dans ta ruelle (Les Fleurs du Mal)

You would take the whole world to bed with you,
Impure woman! Ennui makes your soul cruel;
To exercise your teeth at this singular game,
You need a new heart in the rack each day.
Your eyes, brilliant as shop windows
Or as blazing lamp-stands at public festivals,
Insolently use a borrowed power
Without ever knowing the law of their beauty.

Blind, deaf machine, fecund in cruelties!
Remedial instrument, drinker of the world's blood,
Why are you not ashamed and why have you not seen
In every looking-glass how your charms are fading?
Why have you never shrunk at the enormity
Of this evil at which you think you are expert,
When Nature, resourceful in her hidden designs,
Makes use of you, woman, O queen of sin,
Of you, vile animal, — to fashion a genius?

O foul magnificence! Sublime ignominy!

Translated by: William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

I Adore You as Much as the Nocturnal Vault

Charles Baudelaire - French Poet

I Adore You as Much as the Nocturnal Vault (Flowers of Evil)
Je t'adore à l'égal de la voûte nocturne (Les Fleurs du Mal)

I adore you as much as the nocturnal vault,
O vase of sadness, most taciturn one,
I love you all the more because you flee from me,
And because you appear, ornament of my nights,
More ironically to multiply the leagues
That separate my arms from the blue infinite.

I advance to attack, and I climb to assault,
Like a swarm of maggots after a cadaver,
And I cherish, implacable and cruel beast,
Even that coldness which makes you more beautiful.

Charles Baudelaire