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Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses,
O you, all my pleasures! O you, all my duties!
You will remember the beauty of caresses,
The sweetness of the hearth and the charm of evenings,
Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses!
The evenings lit by the ardor of the coal,
And the evenings on the balcony, veiled in pink mists.
How sweet your breast was to me! how good your heart was to me!
We have often said imperishable things
The evenings lit by the ardor of the coal.
How beautiful the suns are in the warm evenings!
How deep space is! how powerful the heart is!
Leaning toward you, queen of the adored,
I thought I was breathing the perfume of your blood.
How beautiful the suns are in the warm evenings!
The night was thickening like a partition,
And my eyes in the dark divined your pupils,
And I drank your breath, O sweetness! O poison!
And your feet fell asleep in my fraternal hands.
The night was thickening like a partition.
I know the art of evoking happy minutes,
And relive my past nestled in your knees.
For what good is it to seek your languorous beauties
Elsewhere than in your dear body and in your heart so sweet?
I know the art of evoking happy minutes!
These oaths, these perfumes, these infinite kisses,
Will they be reborn from a gulf forbidden to our soundings,
As the rejuvenated suns rise to the sky
After bathing in the depths of the deep seas?
– O oaths! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!
Charles Baudelaire
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-the-balcony-charles-baudelaire/