Charles Baudelaire

Reflected Horror

From that sky, bizarre and livid, Distorted as your destiny, What thoughts into your empty soul Descend? Answer me, libertine. - Insatiably avid For the dark and the uncertain, I shall not whimper like Ovid Chased from his Latin paradise. Skies torn like the shores of the sea, You are the mirror of my pride; Your vast clouds in mourning Are the black hearses of my dreams, And your gleams are the reflection Of the Hell which delights my heart. Translated by - William Aggeler Magnetic Horror "Beneath this sky, so livid and strange, Tormented like thy destiny, What thoughts within thy spirit range Themselves? - O libertine reply." - With vain desires, for ever torn Towards the uncertain, and the vast, And yet, like Ovid - I'll not mourn — Who from his Roman Heaven was cast. O heavens, turbulent as the streams, In you I mirror forth my pride! Your clouds, which clad in mourning, glide, Are the hearses of my dreams, And in your illusion lies the hell, Wherein my heart delights to dwell. Translated by - Cyril Scott Sympathetic Horror From livid skies that, without end, As stormy as your future roll, What thoughts into your empty soul (Answer me, libertine!) descend? - Insatiable yet for all That turns on darkness, doom, or dice, I'll not, like Ovid, mourn my fall, Chased from the Latin paradise. Skies, torn like seacoasts by the storm! In you I see my pride take form, And the huge clouds that rush in streams Are the black hearses of my dreams, And your red rays reflect the hell, In which my heart is pleased to dwell. Translated by - Roy Campbell

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