Ruth White's translation of Charles Baudelaire "Flowers of Evil"

MISTS AND RAINS Late autumns, winters, springtimes steeped in mud, O drowsy seasons I love, and I praise you, For enfolding my heart, and my brain In a misty shroud, a cloudy tomb. In this great plain, where the cold south wind plays, Where through the long night the weather-cock shrieks himself hoarse, My soul, far better than in the days of warm renewal, Will spread wide its raven's wings. Nothing is more dear to my chilled and gloomy heart, O dismal seasons, queens of our sad climate Than the changeless aspect of your pale shadows, Unless it be, on a moonless night, two by two, To lay our suffering to sleep on a periless bed.

OWLS In the shelter of the yews, Owls stand in a row, Like foreign gods. Their red eyes dart. They meditate. They will remain motionless Until the melancholy hour When the shadows push down the slanting sun, And settle into place. Their attitude teaches wise men That in our world Tumult and strife are to be feared; For man, intoxicated by the fleeting shadows, Is always punished For his desire to roam.

THE IRREMEDIABLE I There is a dark and lucid exchange, When the heart becomes its own mirror... A clear, black well of truth Through which glimmers a livid star, An ironic beacon, A torch of satanic grace...

Man's sole relief and his glory... Consciousness in evil. II An idea, a form, a being Parted from the azure and fallen Into the slough of some leaden stix Where no eye of heaven can penetrate; An angel, rash wanderer, Tempted by the love of ugliness, Lashing out like a swimmer, In the depths of a huge nightmare... And struggling, o fierce anguish, Against a gigantic undertow Which goes singing like a horde of madmen And pirouetting in the gloom. An unfortunate man, Groping futilely, Seeking the light and the key, To escape from a hole full of reptiles; A damned man descending endless, bannisterless stairs, Going lampless down the brink of a pit Whose stench betrays its water depths, Where slimy monsters glare, With great phosphorescent eyes, That deepen the darkness of the night And make nothing but themselves visible; A ship held in a crystal trap, Icebound at the pole, Seeking the fatal passage by which It reached that prison; - All these are clear emblems, perfect pictures Of an unchangeable fate. They make us think that whatever he does, The devil does well.

SPLEEN When the low heavy sky weighs like a lid On the spirit, aching for the light, And when, embracing the horizon, It pours on us a black day which is sadder than any night; When the earth is turned into a gripping dungeon, In which Hope, like a bat, Flutters blindly, and bruises its timid wing And tender head against the walls and rotted ceilings; When the rain, stretching down its long streaks of water Imitates the bars of an enormous prison... And a silent throng of loathesome spiders come And weave their webs inside our brains; Then suddenly... The bells swing angrily And hurl their hideous uproar into the sky Like a band of wandering spirits, Who wail relentlessly. - And long hearses, without drums or music,

Move in a slow procession through my soul; And defeated hope bursts into tears and the fierce tyrant Anguish Sets his black banner on my bowed head.