Monday, September 1, 2008

Charles Baudelaire

I happened to pick up a book of poems by a late leading poet of France by the name of Charles Baudelaire. I took a great liking to his poetry. Of his history: He wrote most of his poetry in his twenties, and when it was published in 1857 it was the subject of a trial for blasphemy and immorality. He never got married, and for much of his life carried on an unhappy love affair with the mulatto Jeanne Duval.

I have a lot more poems left to be read in the book. But these are the two I really liked, the first one is entitled music and the second is owls. 

Note: Happened to check his poems out on the net, the translations are different. I have the copy published by Phoenix Poetry publishers. 

Music

Music's a sea of sound; and once afloat

My pale star calls

Mist hangs or huge skies loom above my boat:

I raise my sails,

Breast forward, and lungs swelling in the breeze

All muscles tight,

I climb the slippery backs of tumbling seas

Hidden by night. 

Tormented like my vessel by the storm

I feel at ease;

But when the sea is calm and the sun warm,

The waters bright,

Then all I find in the unmoving air

Is my despair. 

Owls

Ranched on the branches of a yew,

Darting red eyes that never blink,

Like Gods to whom the world seems new,

Behold the owls. They sit and think. 

For hours and hours they do not stir:

The sun moves slowly down the sky,

And darkness settles everywhere;

The last sad rays of dayligh die.

The wise man learns, observing them, 

That man, the victim of a will

Incapable of keeping still

Is doomed to pay the penalty

Of never feeling quite at home,

Besotted with the transitory.  

No comments: