Allegory

Charles Baudelaire

She's a beautiful woman with opulent shoulders 

Who lets her long hair trail in her goblet of wine. 

The claws of love, the poisons of brothels, 

All slips and all is blunted on her granite skin. 

She laughs at Death and snaps her fingers at Debauch. 

The hands of those monsters, ever cutting and scraping, 

Have respected nonetheless the pristine majesty 

Of her firm, straight body at its destructive games. 

She walks like a goddess, rests like a sultana; 

She has a Mohammedan's faith in pleasure 

And to her open arms which are filled by her breasts, 

She lures all mortals with her eyes. 

She believes, she knows, this virgin, sterile 

And yet essential to the march of the world, 

That a beautiful body is a sublime gift 

That wrings a pardon for any foul crime. 

She is unaware of Hell and Purgatory 

And when the time comes for her to enter 

The black Night, she will look into the face of Death 

As a new-born child, — without hatred or remorse.

Beauty

I am fair, O mortals! like a dream carved in stone, 

And my breast where each one in turn has bruised himself 

Is made to inspire in the poet a love 

As eternal and silent as matter.

 On a throne in the sky, a mysterious sphinx, 

I join a heart of snow to the whiteness of swans; 

I hate movement for it displaces lines, 

And never do I weep and never do I laugh.

 Poets, before my grandiose poses, 

Which I seem to assume from the proudest statues, 

Will consume their lives in austere study;

 For I have, to enchant those submissive lovers,

Pure mirrors that make all things more beautiful:

My eyes, my large, wide eyes of eternal brightness!

The Sun 

 Along the outskirts where, close-sheltering 

Hid lusts, dilapidated shutters swing, 

When the sun strikes, redoubling waves of heat 

On town, and field, and roof, and dusty street — 

I prowl to air my prowess and kill time, 

Stalking, in likely nooks, the odds of rhyme, 

Tripping on words like cobbles as I go 

And bumping into lines dreamed long ago.

This all-providing Sire, foe to chloroses, 

Wakes verses in the fields as well as roses 

Evaporates one's cares into the breeze, 

Filling with honey brains and hives of bees, 

Rejuvenating those who go on crutches 

And bringing youthful joy to all he touches, 

Life to those precious harvests he imparts 

That grow and ripen in our deathless hearts.

 Poet-like, through the town he seems to smile 

Ennobling fate for all that is most vile; 

And king-like, without servants or display, 

Through hospitals and mansions makes his way.