Fragment week: The Flowers of Evil
Fragment weeks are where I use up ideas that I know have value in Ars but can’t quite land. Sometime others in the community find excellent ways to use them. Here I’m presenting some of the poems from The Flowers of Evil by Baudelaire. As I think about them I keep circling back to the Lady of Pain and the Ladies of Sorrow. This is because Baudelaire and Swinburne are both decadent poets. There is one inverted Ghostly Warder which would give the Plagued by Supernatural Entity Flaw, and another which might be useful as a necromancer wanting to leave the flesh. Thanks to the Librivox readers and their production team.
BeautyI am lovely, O mortals, like a dream of stone,
And my bosom, where each one gets bruised in turn,
To inspire the love of a poet is prone,
Like matter eternally silent and stern.
As an unfathomed sphinx, enthroned by the Nile,
My heart a swan’s whiteness with granite combines,
And I hate every movement, displacing the lines,
And never I weep and never I smile.
The poets in front of mine attitudes fine
(Which the proudest of monuments seem to implant),
To studies profound all their moments assign,
For I have all these docile swains to enchant—
Two mirrors, which Beauty in all things ignite:
Mine eyes, my large eyes, of eternal Light!
O Beauty! dost thou generate from Heaven or from Hell?
Within thy glance, so diabolic and divine,
Confusedly both wickedness and goodness dwell,
And hence one might compare thee unto sparkling wine.
Thy look containeth both the dawn and sunset stars,
Thy perfumes, as upon a sultry night exhale,
Thy kiss a philter, and thy mouth a Grecian vase,
That renders heroes cowardly and infants hale.
Yea, art thou from the planets, or the fiery womb?
The demon follows in thy train, with magic fraught,
Thou scatter’st seeds haphazardly of joy and doom,
Thou govern’st everything, but answer’st unto nought.
O Loveliness! thou spurnest corpses with delight,
Among thy jewels, Horror hath such charms for thee,
And Murder ‘mid thy mostly cherished trinklets bright,
Upon thy massive bosom dances amorously.
The blinded, fluttering moth towards the candle flies,
Then frizzles, falls, and falters—”Blessings unto thee”—
The panting swain that o’er his beauteous mistress sighs,
Seems like the Sick, that stroke their gravestones lovingly.
What matter, if thou comest from the Heavens or Hell,
O Beauty, frightful ghoul, ingenuous and obscure!
So long thine eyes, thy smile, to me the way can tell
Towards that Infinite I love, but never saw.
From God or Satan? Angel, Mermaid, Proserpine?
What matter if thou makest—blithe, voluptuous sprite—
With rhythms, perfumes, visions—O mine only queen!—
The universe less hideous and the hours less trite.
With pearly robes that wave within the wind,
Even when she walks, she seems to dance,
Like swaying serpents round those wands entwined
Which fakirs ware in rhythmic elegance.
So like the desert’s Blue, and the sands remote,
Both, deaf to mortal suffering and to strife,
Or like the sea-weeds ‘neath the waves that float,
Indifferently she moulds her budding life.
Her polished eyes are made of minerals bright,
And in her mien, symbolical and cold,
Wherein an angel mingles with a sphinx of old,
Where all is gold, and steel, and gems, and light,
There shines, just like a useless star eternally,
The sterile woman’s frigid majesty.
Just like an angel with evil eye,
I shall return to thee silently,
Upon thy bower I’ll alight,
With falling shadows of the night.
With thee, my brownie, I’ll commune,
And give thee kisses cold as the moon,
And with a serpent’s moist embrace,
I’ll crawl around thy resting-place.
And when the livid morning falls,
Thou’lt find alone the empty walls,
And till the evening, cold ’twill be.
As others with their tenderness,
Upon thy life and youthfulness,
I’ll reign alone with dread o’er thee.
Meseemeth thy glance, soft enshrouded with dew,
Thy mysterious eyes (are they grey, green or blue?),
Alternately cruel, and tender, and shy,
Reflect both the languor and calm of the sky.
Thou recallest those white days—with shadows caressed,
Engendering tears from th’ enraptured breast,
When racked by an anguish unfathomed that weeps,
The nerves, too awake, jibe the spirit that sleeps.
At times—thou art like those horizons divine,
Where the suns of the nebulous seasons decline;
How resplendent art thou—O pasturage vast,
Illumed by the beams of a sky overcast!
O! dangerous dame—oh seductive clime!
As well, will I love both thy snow and thy rime,
And shall I know how from the frosts to entice
Delights that are keener than iron and ice?
You are a roseate autumn-sky, that glows!
Yet sadness rises in me like the flood,
And leaves in ebbing on my lips morose,
The poignant memory of its bitter mind.
In vain your hands my swooning breast embrace,
Oh, friend! alone remains the plundered spot,
Where woman’s biting grip has left its trace:
My heart, the beasts devoured–seek it not!
My heart is a palace pillaged by the herd;
They kill and take each other by the throat!
A perfume glides around your bosom bared–
O loveliness, thou scourge of souls–devote
Thine eyes of fire–luminous-like feasts,
To burn these rags–rejected by the beasts!
Where snails abound—in a juicy soil,
I will dig for myself a fathomless grave,
Where at leisure mine ancient bones I can coil,
And sleep—quite forgotten—like a shark ‘neath the wave.
I hate every tomb—I abominate wills,
And rather than tears from the world to implore,
I would ask of the crows with their vampire bills
To devour every bit of my carcass impure.
Oh worms, without eyes, without ears, black friends!
To you a defunct-one, rejoicing, descends,
Enlivened Philosophers—offspring of Dung!
Without any qualms, o’er my wreckage spread,
And tell if some torment there still can be wrung
For this soul-less old frame that is dead ‘midst the dead!
When I behold thee wander by, my languorous love,
To songs of viols which throughout the dome resound,
Harmonious and stately as thy footsteps move,
Bestowing forth the languor of thy glance profound.
When I regard thee, glowing in the gaslight rays,
Thy pallid brow embellished by a charm obscure,
Here where the evening torches light the twilight haze,
Thine eyes attracting me like those of a portraiture,
I say—How beautiful she is! how strangely rich!
A mighty memory, royal and commanding tower,
A garland: and her heart, bruised like a ruddy peach,
Is ripe—like her body for Love’s sapient power.
Art thou, that spicy Autumn-fruit with taste supreme?
Art thou a funeral vase inviting tears of grief?
Aroma—causing one of Eastern wastes to dream;
A downy cushion, bunch of flowers or golden sheaf?
I know that there are eyes, most melancholy ones,
Wherein no precious secret deeply hidden lies,
Resplendent shrines, devoid of relics, sacred stones,
More empty, more profound than ye yourselves, O skies?
Yea, does thy semblance, not alone for me suffice,
To kindle senses which the cruel truth abhor?
All one to me! thy folly or thy heart of ice,
Decoy or mask, all hail! thy beauty I adore!
