Exotic Perfume

By Charles Baudelaire

On autumn nights, eyes closed, when, sensuous,
I breathe the scent of your warm breasts, my sight
Is peopled by far shores, happy and bright,
Under a sun, warm and monotonous.
A lazy isle which nature, generous,
Stocks with weird trees and fruits of strange delight,
Men with lithe bodies, powerful but slight,
Women whose candid eyes flash luminous.

Urged by your scent to such charmed lands at last,
I see a port with many a sail and mast
Still weary from the ocean's frenzied roll,
While the green tamarinds exhale their savor
To please my nostrils with a dulcet flavor,
Mingled with sailor chanteys in my soul.

Lesbos

Mother of Latin revelry and of Greek delight,
Lesbos, whereof the kisses, disconsolate or gay,
Hot as the sun, or cool as melons plucked by night,
Beguile the unshadowed and the shadowed hours away;
Mother of Latin revelry and of Greek delight,

Lesbos, whereof the kisses are whirlpools and cascades
Journeying carelessly into a dark abyss:
So wild the sobbing and laughter among thy colonnades,
So secret, so profound, so stormy, every kiss!
Lesbos, whereof the kisses are whirlpools and cascades!

Lesbos, where the sweet slaves one to another yearn,
Where there is never a glance without an echoing sign;
Even as upon Cyprus the stars upon thee burn
With praise, and Cyprus' queen is envious of thine,
Lesbos, where the sweet slaves one to mother yearn —

Lesbos, of sultry twilights and pure, infertile joy,
Where deep-eyed maidens, thoughtlessly disrobing, see
Their beauty, and are entranced before their mirrors, and toy
Fondly with the soft fruits of their nubility;
Lesbos, of sultry twilights and pure, infertile joy!

Let frown the old lined forehead of Plato as it will:
Thy pardon is assured — even by the strange excess,
Luxurious isle, of thy long sterile rapture, still
Contriving some new freak or form of tenderness;
Let frown the old lined forehead of Plato as it will.

Thy pardon has been bought with our eternal pain,
The lonely martyrdom endured in every age
By those who sigh for pleasures outlandish and insane
To ease the unearthly longing no pleasure can assuage.
Thy pardon has been bought with our eternal pain.

Who, Lesbos, of the gods would dare pronounce thy fate
And brand thy passionate white brow with infamy —
Or hope by any art or science to estimate
The tears, the tears thy streams have poured into the sea?
Who, Lesbos, of the gods would dare pronounce thy fate?

What are men's laws to us, injurious or benign?
Proud virgins, glory of the Aegean! We know well
Love, be it most foredoomed, most desperate, is divine,
And love will always laugh at heaven and at hell!
What are men's laws to us, injurious or benign?

Lo! I was named by Lesbos of all the lists of earth
To celebrate her sad-eyed girls and their sweet lore:
And I have known from childhood the noise of loud, crazed mirth
Confused mysteriously with terrible weeping — for
Lo! I was named by Lesbos of all the lists of earth.

And I have watched thenceforward from the Leucadian cliff,
Like an unwearying old sentry, who can descry
Far out on the horizon a sailboat or a skiff
Invisible to others, with his sharp, practised eye;
And I have watched thenceforward from the Leucadian cliff

To find if the cold wave were pitiful and good —
And someday I shall see come wandering home, I know,
To all-forgiving Lesbos upon the twilight flood
The sacred ruins of Sappho, who set forth long ago
To find if the cold wave were pitiful and good;

Of Sappho, poet and lover — the virile, calm, and brave,
More beautiful than Venus, by force of earthly grief —
More beautiful than blue-eyed Venus, with her grave
And dusky glance disclosing the sorrows past belief
Of Sappho, poet and lover — the virile, calm, and brave:

More beautiful than Venus arising to the world
And scattering all round her the iridescent fire
Of her blond loveliness with rainbow hues impearled
Upon the old green ocean, her bedazzled sire;
More beautiful than Venus arising to the world!

— Of Sappho, who died proudly the day of her soul's crime
When, faithless to her teaching and to her serious pledge,
She flung the occult dark roses of her love sublime
To a vain churl. Alas! How deep the sacrilege
Of Sappho, who died proudly the day of her soul's crime!

And from that day to this the isle of Lesbos mourns —
And heedful of the world's late homage in no wise,
Gives answer but with the hollow moaning of her wild bourns:
The sea's long obloquy to the unlistening skies!
And from that day to this the isle of Lesbos mourns.