Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Baudelaire

Baudelaire, today:

"Correspondences"

In Nature's temple living pillars rise,
and words are murmured none have understood
and man must wander through a tangled wood
of Symbols watching him with friendly eyes.

As long-drawn echoes heard far off and dim
mingle to one deep sound and fade away;
vast as the night and brilliant as the day
colour and sound and perfume speak to him

Some perfumes are as fragrant as a child
sweet as the sound of hautboys, meadow-green
Others, corrupted, rich, exultant, wild

Have all the expansion of things infinite:
as amber, incense, musk and benzoin,
which sing the sense's and the soul's delight

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