an immensity of ether

This English version of 'La Musique', has been taken from Charles Baudelaire's (in)famous "Flowers of Evil" ...

... the translation is by Jacques LeClercq - all from the pictured 1958 edition:


Music

Music oft seizes me and sweeps me like a sea
toward where my star shines pale,
With mists for ceiling, or through an immensity
of ether I set sail.
My breast flung forward and my lungs swollen
like white canvas, windswept I scale
The backs of heaping waves over which
gentle night has wound a darkling veil.

So all the passions of a vessel suffering
rise in me; the brave blast
Of winds, and storms in their convulsive movements,
swing me, cradled on the vast
Abyss. At other times, dead calms, like mirrors
there, reflecting my despair.

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Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867)

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