Page:Poems and Baudelaire Flowers.djvu/47

Rh thou from high heaven or from the abyss,
 * O Beauty? For thy look, hellish, divine,

Is fraught with mingled misery and bliss
 * (Wherefore thy soul is as the soul of wine).

Within thine eye red dawn and sunset burn;
 * Odours thou spread’st as stormy evenings;

Thy kisses are a draught, thy mouth an urn
 * To make men quail and babes do mighty things.

From the dark gulf, or from the immortal stars?
 * The charmèd Demon follows like a hound;

Thou rul’st with hand that careless makes or mars,
 * Nor to our prayers vouchsafest any sound.

Thou walkest over dead men, mocking them,
 * Beauty! and horror decks the throat of thee,

And glittering murder, thy most precious gem,
 * On thy proud belly dances amorously.

Toward thee, flame, the dazzled insect flies,
 * Shrivels and cries, “Blest conqueror of gloom!”

Upon his fair one’s breast the lover lies,
 * As ’twere a dying man who hugs his tomb.

Naïve, terrible form! what boots it sky or pit,
 * O beauty! if thine eye, smile, foot, alone

Can open me the gate of an infinite
 * My soul’s athirst for, and has never known?