Читать книгу Poems of Baudelaire (Les Fleurs du Mal) - Charles Baudelaire - Страница 23
ОглавлениеTO ERNEST CHRISTOPHE, sculptor
| Study with me this Florentinian treasure, Whose undulous and muscular design Welds Grace with Strength in sisterhood divine; A marvel only wonderment can measure, Divinely strong, superbly slim and fine, She’s formed to reign upon a bed of pleasure And charm some prince or pontiff in his leisure. See, too, her smile voluptuously shine, Where sheer frivolity displays its sign: That lingering look of languor, guile, and cheek, The dainty face, which veils of gauze enshrine, That seems in conquering accents thus to speak:— “Pleasure commands me. Love my brow has crowned!” Enamouring our thoughts in humble duty, True majesty with merriment is found. Approach, let’s take a turn about her beauty. O blasphemy! Dread shock! Our hopes to pique, This lovely body, promising delight, Ends at the top in a two-headed freak.But no! it’s just a mask that tricked our sight, Fooling us with that exquisite grimace: On the reverse you see her proper face, Fiercely convulsed, in its true self revealed, Which from our sight that lying mask concealed. —O sad great beauty! The grand river, fed By your rich tears, debouches in my heart. Though I am rapt with your deceptive art, My soul is slaked upon the tears you shed. And yet why does she weep? Such peerless grace Could trample down the conquered human race. What evil gnaws her flank so strong and sleek? She weeps because she’s lived, and that she lives. Madly she weeps for that. But more she grieves (And at the knees she trembles and goes weak) Because tomorrow she must live, and then The next day, and forever—like us men. |
