Charles Baudelaire-ses poemes et sa vie

Annabel_Lee · **ஐ NaUgHtGeLiC ஐ**

Spleen
by Charles Baudelaire
Translated by Richard Howard

(I)

February, peeved at Paris, pours
a gloomy torrent on the pale lessees
of the graveyard next door and a mortal chill
on tenants of the foggy suburbs too.

The tiles afford no comfort to my cat
that cannot keep its mangy body still;
the soul of some old poet haunts the drains
and howls as if a ghost could hate the cold.

A churchbell grieves, a log in the fireplace smokes
and hums falsetto to the clock's catarrh,
while in a filthy reeking deck of cards

inherited from a dropsical old maid,
the dapper Knave of Hearts and the Queen of Spades
grimly disinter their love affairs.

(II)

Souvenirs?
More than if I had lived a thousand years!

No chest of drawers crammed with documents,
love-letters, wedding-invitations, wills,
a lock of someone's hair rolled up in a deed,
hides so many secrets as my brain.
This branching catacombs, this pyramid
contains more corpses than the potter's field:
I am a graveyard that the moon abhors,
where long worms like regrets come out to feed
most ravenously on my dearest dead.
I am an old boudoir where a rack of gowns,
perfumed by withered roses, rots to dust;
where only faint pastels and pale Bouchers
inhale the scent of long-unstoppered flasks.

Nothing is slower than the limping days
when under the heavy weather of the years
Boredom, the fruit of glum indifference,
gains the dimension of eternity . . .
Hereafter, mortal clay, you are no more
than a rock encircled by a nameless dread,
an ancient sphinx omitted from the map,
forgotten by the world, and whose fierce moods
sing only to the rays of setting suns.

(III)

I'm like the king of a rainy country, rich
but helpless, decrepit though still a young man
who scorns his fawning tutors, wastes his time
on dogs and other animals, and has no fun;
nothing distracts him, neither hawk nor hound
nor subjects starving at the palace gate.
His favorite fool's obscenities fall flat
--the royal invalid is not amused--
and ladies in waiting for a princely nod
no longer dress indecently enough
to win a smile from this young skeleton.
The bed of state becomes a stately tomb.
The alchemist who brews him gold has failed
to purge the impure substance from his soul,
and baths of blood, Rome's legacy recalled
by certain barons in their failing days,
are useless to revive this sickly flesh
through which no blood but brackish Lethe seeps.

(IV)

When skies are low and heavy as a lid
over the mind tormented by disgust,
and hidden in the gloom the sun pours down
on us a daylight dingier than the dark;

when earth becomes a trickling dungeon where
Trust like a bat keeps lunging through the air,
beating tentative wings along the walls
and bumping its head against the rotten beams;

when rain falls straight from unrelenting clouds,
forging the bars of some enormous jail,
and silent hordes of obscene spiders spin
their webs across the basements of our brains;

then all at once the raging bells break loose,
hurling to heaven their awful caterwaul,
like homeless ghosts with no one left to haunt
whimpering their endless grievances.

--And giant hearses, without dirge or drums,
parade at half-step in my soul, where Hope,
defeated, weeps, and the oppressor Dread
plants his black flag on my assenting skull.

Originally appeared in Les Fleurs du Mal, translated by Richard Howard and published by David R. Godine.

Annabel_Lee · **ஐ NaUgHtGeLiC ஐ**

The Fountain of Blood
by Charles Baudelaire
Translated by Rachel Hadas

A fountain's pulsing sobs--like this my blood
Measures its flowing, so it sometimes seems.
I hear a gentle murmur as it streams;
Where the wound lies I've never understood.

Like water meadows, boulevards are flooded.
Cobblestones, crisscrossed by scarlet rills,
Are islands; creatures come and drink their fill.
Nothing in nature now remains unblooded.

I used to hope that wine could bring me ease,
Could lull asleep my deeply gnawing mind.
I was a fool: the senses clear with wine.

I looked to Love to cure my old disease.
Love led me to a thicket of IVs
Where bristling needles thirsted for each vein.

Annabel_Lee · **ஐ NaUgHtGeLiC ஐ**

Voyage to Cythera
by Charles Baudelaire
Translated by Rachel Hadas

Free as a bird and joyfully my heart
Soared up among the rigging, in and out;
Under a cloudless sky the ship rolled on
Like an angel drunk with brilliant sun.

"That dark, grim island there--which would that be?"
"Cythera," we're told, "the legendary isle
Old bachelors tell stories of and smile.
There's really not much to it, you can see."

O place of many a mystic sacrament!
Archaic Aphrodite's splendid shade
Lingers above your waters like a scent
Infusing spirits with an amorous mood.

Worshipped from of old by every nation,
Myrtle-green isle, where each new bud discloses
Sighs of souls in loving adoration
Breathing like incense from a bank of roses

Or like a dove roo-cooing endlessly . . .
No; Cythera was a poor infertile rock,
A stony desert harrowed by the shriek
Of gulls. And yet there was something to see:

This was no temple deep in flowers and trees
With a young priestess moving to and fro,
Her body heated by a secret glow,
Her robe half-opening to every breeze;

But coasting nearer, close enough to land
To scatter flocks of birds as we passed by,
We saw a tall cypress-shaped thing at hand--
A triple gibbet black against the sky.

Ferocious birds, each perched on its own meal,
Were madly tearing at the thing that hung
And ripened; each, its filthy beak a drill,
Made little bleeding holes to root among.

The eyes were hollowed. Heavy guts cascading
Flowed like water halfway down the thighs;
The torturers, though gorged on these vile joys,
Had also put their beaks to use castrating

The corpse. A pack of dogs beneath its feet,
Their muzzles lifted, whirled and snapped and gnawed;
One bigger beast amidst this jealous lot
Looked like an executioner with his guard.

O Cytherean, child of this fair clime,
Silently you suffered these attacks,
Paying the penalty for whatever acts
Of infamy had kept you from a tomb.

Grotesquely dangling, somehow you brought on--
Violent as vomit rising from the chest,
Strong as a river bilious to taste--
A flow of sufferings I'd thought long gone.

Confronted with such dear remembered freight,
Poor devil, now it was my turn to feel
A panther's slavering jaws, a beak's cruel drill--
Once it was my flesh they loved to eat.

The sky was lovely, and the sea divine,
but something thick and binding like a shroud
Wrapped my heart in layers of black and blood;
Henceforth this allegory would be mine.

O Venus! On your isle what did I see
But my own image on the gallows tree?
O God, give me the strength to contemplate
My own heart, my own body without hate!

Annabel_Lee · **ஐ NaUgHtGeLiC ஐ**

EVEN WHEN SHE WALKS. . .

Even when she walks she seems to dance!
Her garments writhe and glisten like long snakes
obedient to the rhythm of the wands
by which a fakir wakens them to grace.

Like both the desert and the desert sky
insensible to human suffering,
and like the ocean's endless labyrinth
she shows her body with indifference.

Precious minerals are her polished eyes,
and in her strange symbolic nature
angel and sphinx unite,
where diamonds, gold, and steel dissolve into one light,
shining forever, useless as a star,
the sterile woman's icy majesty.

Annabel_Lee · **ஐ NaUgHtGeLiC ஐ**

THE ALBATROSS

Often, to pass the time on board, the crew
will catch an albatross, one of those big birds
which nonchalantly chaperone a ship
across the biter fathoms of the sea.

Tied to the deck, this sovereign of space,
as if embarrassed by its clumsiness,
pitiably lets its great white wings
drag at its sides like a pair of unshipped oars.

How weak and awkward, even comical
this traveler but lately so adroit-
one deckhand sticks a pipestem in its beak,
another mock the cripple that once flew!

The Poet is like this monarch of the clouds
riding the storm above the marksman's range;
exiled on the ground, hooted and jeered,
he cannot walk because of his great wings.

Ivankamaza · **~Ljubav i Snovi~**

L'avertisseur

Tout homme digne de ce nom
A dans le coeur un Serpent jaune,
Installé comme sur un trône,
Qui, s'il dit : " Je veux ! " répond : " Non ! "

Plonge tes yeux dans les yeux fixes
Des Satyresses ou des Nixes,
La Dent dit : " Pense à ton devoir ! "

Fais des enfants, plante des arbres,
Polis des vers, sculpte des marbres,
La Dent dit : " Vivras-tu ce soir ? "

Quoi qu'il ébauche ou qu'il espère,
L'homme ne vit pas un moment
Sans subir l'avertissement
De l'insupportable Vipère.

Ivankamaza · **~Ljubav i Snovi~**

La musique

La musique souvent me prend comme une mer !
Vers ma pâle étoile,
Sous un plafond de brume ou dans un vaste éther,
Je mets à la voile ;

La poitrine en avant et les poumons gonflés
Comme de la toile,
J'escalade le dos des flots amoncelés
Que la nuit me voile ;

Je sens vibrer en moi toutes les passions
D'un vaisseau qui souffre ;
Le bon vent, la tempête et ses convulsions

Sur l'immense gouffre
Me bercent. D'autres fois, calme plat, grand miroir
De mon désespoir !

Ivankamaza · **~Ljubav i Snovi~**

Le crépuscule du matin

La diane chantait dans les cours des casernes,
Et le vent du matin soufflait sur les lanternes.

C'était l'heure où l'essaim des rêves malfaisants
Tord sur leurs oreillers les bruns adolescents ;
Où, comme un oeil sanglant qui palpite et qui bouge,
La lampe sur le jour fait une tache rouge ;
Où l'âme, sous le poids du corps revêche et lourd,
Imite les combats de la lampe et du jour.
Comme un visage en pleurs que les brises essuient,
L'air est plein du frisson des choses qui s'enfuient,
Et l'homme est las d'écrire et la femme d'aimer.

Les maisons çà et là commençaient à fumer.
Les femmes de plaisir, la paupière livide,
Bouche ouverte, dormaient de leur sommeil stupide ;
Les pauvresses, traînant leurs seins maigres et froids,
Soufflaient sur leurs tisons et soufflaient sur leurs doigts.
C'était l'heure où parmi le froid et la lésine
S'aggravent les douleurs des femmes en gésine ;
Comme un sanglot coupé par un sang écumeux
Le chant du coq au loin déchirait l'air brumeux ;
Une mer de brouillards baignait les édifices,
Et les agonisants dans le fond des hospices
Poussaient leur dernier râle en hoquets inégaux.
Les débauchés rentraient, brisés par leurs travaux.

L'aurore grelottante en robe rose et verte
S'avançait lentement sur la Seine déserte,
Et le sombre Paris, en se frottant les yeux,
Empoignait ses outils, vieillard laborieux.

Annabel_Lee · **ஐ NaUgHtGeLiC ஐ**

Jednoj prolaznici

Ulica je zaglušna vripšala oko mene.

Duga, tanka, u crnini, veličanstvo bola,

Prošla je neka žena, a ruka joj ohola

Pridizaše, njihaše skutove svoje;

Hitra, otmjena, s nogom kao u kakva kipa.

A ja se napajah, u grču osobenjaka,

Njenim okom, olovnim nebom olujnog znaka,

Što zanosnu blagost i smrtonosnu slast sipa.

Jedna munja? A zatim noc! - Trenutna prelesti

S čijeg pogleda namah novim životom dišem,

Zar ću te samo u vječnosti ponovo sresti?

Drugdje, daleko! Prekasno! Možda nikad više!

Jer ne znaš kuda ću, ne znam kuda si nestala,

Ti koju koju sam mogao voljeti, ti što si to znala.

Idealno_losha · **Опасница ©**

LJEPOTA

Ko san od kamena lijepa, o smrtnici!
Grudima svojim već svakoga izranih,
I Ijubavlju vječnom i nijemom za njih,
Ko tvari nekom izgaraju pjesnici.

Modrinom kraljujem, sfinga neshvaćena,
Put mi je labuda, a srce od snijega,
Mrzim svaku kretnju htijenja i bijega,
Nikad nasmijana, nikad napaćena.

Preda mnom pjesnici provode sve noći
I dane, da vide ponosno mi lice,
Jer nema spomenika ravnih mojoj moći;

Ja ih ožaravam poput Ijubavnice,
Čistim zrcalima od Ijepše stvarnosti,
Ocima svojim, što sjaju u vječnosti!

ex_deda · *28*

jura4 · Početnik Domaćeg.de

Tajanstvene zjene magolom prekrivene
jesu li ti plave, sive il zelene?
Sad gledaju nježno, sad zure okrutno
Odrazuju nebo nehajno i mutno.

Ti si kao mlaki natmureni dani
kad sred srca grca jad neisplakani
a neznane boli po živcima ruju,
što se duhu snenom ismjehuju

Ponekad si nalik na divne obzore,
gdje lomače sunca u maglini gore.
U kakvom si sjaju orošeni kraju,
kad te s nujnog svoda ognji obasjaju!

O ženo opasna, o čarobne klime
Kako snijeg tvoj voljet i stud grobne zime?
O dal' ću od nje, mrazne ,neumolne,
izmamiti slasti opojne i bolne

Preveo - Vladislav Kušan

Crying or Very sad