To Theodore de Banville
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| To Theodore de Banville / À Theodore de Banville by |
| NOTE: Baudelaire sent this poem in a letter to Banville in 1842. After Baudelaire's death, in 1868, Banville edited a new version of the Flowers of Evil and included this old bit of friendly flattery. Translated by Sir John Squire (1884 - 1958), published 1908. Source: The Flowers of Evil, ed. Marthiel and Jackson Mathews, New Directions edition, 1989. |
To Theodore de Banville
So proud your port, your arm so powerful,
With such a grip you grip the goddess’ hair,
That one might take you, from your casual air,
For a young ruffian flinging down his trull.
Your clear eye flashing with precocity,
You have displayed yourself proud architect
Of fabrics so audaciously correct
That we may guess what your ripe prime may be.
Poet, our blood ebbs out through every pore;
Is it, perchance, the robe the Centaur bore,
Which made a sullen streamlet of each vein,
Was three times dipped within the venom fell
Of those old reptiles fierce and terrible
Whom, in his cradle, Hercules had slain?
The note on the translation:
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