Showing posts with label Charles Baudelaire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charles Baudelaire. Show all posts

Monday, April 9, 2018

Édouard Chimot (1880 – 1959) ~ illustration for Les Fleurs du mal, 1941






Odilon Redon (1840-1916) ~ Pilgrim of the Sublunary World from Dreams, lithograph, 1891



On the satin back of the avalanche soft, 
She falls into lingering swoons, as she dies, 
While she lifteth her eyes to white visions aloft, 

Which like efflorescence float up to the skies. 

Charles Baudelaire, Tristesses de la lune from Fleurs du Mal




Born today...Charles Pierre Baudelaire, poet, April 9, 1821, Paris, France


The Spiritual Dawn

When upon revellers the stained dawn breaks 
The fierce ideal comes with it; at that hour, 
Stirred by some terrible avenging power, 
An angel in the sated brute awakes. 
Above the stricken, suffering man there glow 
Far azure plains of unimagined bliss 
Which draw his dreaming spirit like the abyss. 
O pure, beloved Goddess, even so 
O'er the smoked wrecks of stupid scenes of shame 
Brighter and rosier thy sweet memory 
Hovers before my wide eyes hauntingly...
The Sun has dimmed and charred the candles' flame, 
And thus, my glorious all-conquering one, 
Thy shade is peer to the immortal Sun

~ Fleurs du mal / Flowers of Evil

image: Carlo Farneti (1892-1961) illustration for Les Fleurs du Mal 1935






Saturday, November 9, 2013

May Den Engelsen... illustrations...Charles Baudelaire's Condemned Poems... 1927




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Lesbos

Mother of Latin games and Greek delights,
Lesbos, where kisses, languishing or joyous,
Burning as the sun's light, cool as melons,
Adorn the nights and the glorious days;
Mother of Latin games and Greek delights,

Lesbos, where the kisses are like cascades 
That throw themselves boldly into bottomless chasms 
And flow, sobbing and gurgling intermittently, 
Stormy and secret, teeming and profound; 
Lesbos, where the kisses are like cascades!

Lesbos, where courtesans feel drawn toward each other,
Where for every sigh there is an answering sigh,
The stars admire you as much as Paphos,
And Venus may rightly be jealous of Sappho!
Lesbos, where courtesans feel drawn toward each other,

Lesbos, land of hot and languorous nights,
That make the hollow-eyed girls, amorous
Of their own bodies, caress before their mirrors
The ripe fruits of their nubility, O sterile pleasure!
    Lesbos, land of hot and languorous nights...







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Illustrations from Condemned Poems illustrated by May Den Engelsen, published 1927





Saturday, November 20, 2010

Johannes Sadeler ...Bacchus, Amor & Music...1500's




Sadeler, Johannes bacchus amor music
click for larger image

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from Six Little Poems in Prose
by Charles Baudelaire

translated by Aleister Crowley



Thursday, January 21, 2010

Leonor Fini... Sphinx & Charles Baudelaire...Beauty..poem and drawings...




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Beauty



I am fair, O mortals! like a dream carved in stone,
And my breast where each one in turn has bruised himself
Is made to inspire in the poet a love
As eternal and silent as matter.


On a throne in the sky, a mysterious sphinx,
I join a heart of snow to the whiteness of swans;
I hate movement for it displaces lines,
And never do I weep and never do I laugh.


Poets, before my grandiose poses,
Which I seem to assume from the proudest statues,
Will consume their lives in austere study;


For I have, to enchant those submissive lovers,
Pure mirrors that make all things more beautiful:
My eyes, my large, wide eyes of eternal brightness!




Charles Baudelaire - The Flowers of Evil
Translation by William Aggeler