Correspondences

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Correspondеnces / Correspondances
by Charles Baudelaire , translated by Lewis Piaget Shanks
NOTE: The poem No. 4 in all three early editions of "The Flowers of Evil" / "Les Fleurs du mal". Flowers of Evil (New York: Ives Washburn, 1931). Source: fleursdumal.org .


Correspondences

Nature's a fane where down each corridor
of living pillars, darkling whispers roll,
— a symbol-forest every pilgrim soul
must pierce, 'neath gazing eyes it knew before.

like echoes long that from afar rebound,
merged till one deep low shadowy note is born,
vast as the night or as the fires of morn,
sound calls to fragrance, colour calls to sound.

cool as an infant's brow some perfumes are,
softer than oboes, green as rainy leas;
others, corrupt, exultant, rich, unbar

wide infinities wherein we move at ease:
— musk, ambergris, frankincense, benjamin
chant all our soul or sense can revel in.

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