Charles Baudelaire - Les Fleurs du mal (1857)

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I have more memories than if I were a thousand years old.

Charles Baudelaire
How bittersweet it is, on winter's night,
To listen, by the sputtering, smoking fire,
As distant memories, through the fog-dimmed light,
Rise, to the muffled chime of churchbell choir.

Charles Baudelaire
Ah! Seigneur! donnez-moi la force et le courage De contempler mon coeur et mon corps sans de go u" t. Lord! give me the strength and the courage To see my heart and my body without disgust.

Charles Baudelaire
What is it that brings on these moods of yours?
Nothing mysterious: the ordinary pain of being alive.

Charles Baudelaire
La', tout n'est qu'ordre et beaute, Luxe, calme et volupte. There where all is order and beauty. Lush, calm and voluptuous.

Charles Baudelaire
Certes, je sortirai quant a' moi satisfait D'un monde o u' l'action n'est pas la soeur du re" ve. Indeed, for my part, I shall be happy to leave A world where action is not sister to the dream.

Charles Baudelaire
What do I care that you are good?
Be beautiful! and be sad!

Charles Baudelaire
There, there is nothing else but grace and measure, Richness, quietness and pleasure.

Charles Baudelaire
The poet is like the prince of the clouds
Who haunts the tempest and laughs at the archer;
Exiled on the ground in the midst of jeers,
His giant wings prevent him from walking.

Charles Baudelaire
O Death, old captain, it is time! raise the anchor!

Charles Baudelaire
Above my cradle loomed the bookcase where/ Latin ashes and the dust of Greece/ mingled with novels, history, and verse/ in one dark Babel. I was folio-high/ when I first heard the voices.

Charles Baudelaire
Everything there is simply order and beauty, luxury, peace and sensual indulgence.

Charles Baudelaire
Hypocrite lecteur—mon semblable—mon frère [Hypocrite reader—my double—my brother]!

Charles Baudelaire
Nature is a temple, where, from living pillars, confused words are sometimes allowed to escape; here man passes, through forests of symbols, which watch him with looks of recognition.

Charles Baudelaire
Everything, alas, is an abyss, — actions, desires, dreams, words!

Charles Baudelaire
I am the wound and the knife!
I am the blow and the cheek!
I am the limbs and the wheel —
The victim and the executioner!

Charles Baudelaire
La, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté Luxe, calme et volupté There, there is nothing else but grace and measure, Richness, quietness, and pleasure.

Charles Baudelaire
What is that sad, dark island? —It is Cythera, They tell us, a country famous in song, Banal Eldorado of all the old bachelors. Look! after all, it is a poor land!

Charles Baudelaire
Here is the charming evening, the criminal's friend; It comes like an accomplice, with stealthy tread.

Charles Baudelaire
Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses.

Charles Baudelaire
Forest, I fear you! In my ruined heart your roaring wakens the same agony as in cathedrals when the organ moans and from the depths I hear that I am damned.

Charles Baudelaire
What sad, black isle is that? It's Cythera, so they say, a land celebrated in song, the banal Eldorado of all the old fools. Look, after all, it's a land of poverty.

Charles Baudelaire
Perfumes, colors and sounds echo one another.

Charles Baudelaire
And over your unconsecrated head you'll hear the howling wolves lament their fate and yours the livelong year;

Charles Baudelaire