Hymn to Beauty

Poem by Charles Baudelaire Collection The Flowers of EvilThemes ArtPeriod 19th century

Do you come from deep heaven or rise from the abyss,
O Beauty! your gaze, infernal and divine,
Pours out confusedly blessing and crime,
And for that one may compare you to wine.

You hold in your eye the sunset and the dawn;
You spread perfumes like a stormy evening;
Your kisses are a philter and your mouth an amphora
That make the hero cowardly and the child brave.

Do you come from the black gulf or descend from the stars?
Charmed Destiny follows your skirts like a dog;
You sow at random joy and disasters,
And you govern all and answer for nothing.

You walk on the dead, Beauty, whom you mock;
Of your jewels Horror is not the least charming,
And Murder, among your dearest trinkets,
On your proud belly dances amorously.
The dazzled ephemeral flies toward you, candle,
Crackles, flames and says: Let us bless this torch!
The panting lover leaning over his beauty
Looks like a dying man caressing his tomb.

Whether you come from heaven or from hell, what matters,
O Beauty! enormous monster, frightening, ingenuous!
If your eye, your smile, your foot, open for me the door
Of an Infinite that I love and have never known?

From Satan or from God, what matters? Angel or Siren,
What matters, if you make, – fairy with velvet eyes,
Rhythm, perfume, gleam, O my only queen! –
The universe less hideous and the moments less heavy?

Charles Baudelaire

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