Calm as blue wastes of sky and desert sand That watch unmoved the sorrows of this world; With slow regardless sweep as on the strand The long swell of the woven sea-waves swirled. Her polished orbs are like a mystic gem, And, while this strange and symbolled being links The inviolate angel and the antique sphinx, Insphered in gold, steel, light and diadem The splendour of a lifeless star endows With clear cold majesty the barren spouse. MUSIC Launch me, O music, whither on the soundless Sea my star gleams pale! I beneath cloudy cope or rapt in boundless Æther set my sail; With breast outblown, swollen by the wind that urges Swelling sheets, I scale The summit of the wave whose vexed surges Night from me doth veil; A labouring vessel's passions in my pulses Thrill the shuddering sense; The wind that wafts, the tempest that convulses, O'er the gulf immense Swing me.--Anon flat calm and clearer air Glass my soul's despair! LA MUSIQUE. THE SPIRITUAL DAWN When on some wallowing soul the roseate East Dawns with the Ideal that awakes and gnaws, By vengeful working of mysterious laws An angel rises in the drowsed beast. The inaccessible blue of the soul-sphere To him whose grovelling dream remorse doth gall Yawns wide as when the gulfs of space enthral. So, heavenly Goddess, Spirit pure and clear, Even on the reeking ruins of vile shame Thy rosy vision, beautiful and bright, For ever floats on my enlargëd sight. Thus sunlight blackens the pale taper-flame; And thus is thy victorious phantom one, O soul of splendour, with the immortal Sun! L'AUBE SPIRITUELLE. THE FLAWED BELL Bitter and sweet it is, in winter night, Hard by the flickering fire that smokes, to list While far-off memories rise in sad slow flight, With chimes that echo singing through the mist. O blessëd be the bell whose vigorous throat, In spite of age alert, with strength unspent, Utters religiously his faithful note, Like an old warrior watching near the tent! My soul, alas! is flawed, and when despair Would people with her songs the chill night-air Too oft they faint in hoarse enfeebled tones, As when a wounded man forgotten moans By the red pool, beneath a heap of dead, And dying writhes in frenzy on his bed. LA CLOCHE FÉLÉE. THREE POEMS FROM BAUDELAIRE Translated by Richard Herne Shepherd I A CARCASS Recall to mind the sight we saw, my soul, That soft, sweet summer day: Upon a bed of flints a carrion foul, Just as we turn'd the way