Beauty
Beauty
Charles Baudelaire
I 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!
Verse breaks and indentation are preserved. Wrapped lines have a hanging indent. Width adapts to your screen.
From The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du mal), tr. 1909. Translation in the public domain. · Translated by Cyril Scott
