Beauty

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

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

I throne in the azure like an uncomprehended sphinx;
I unite a heart of snow with the whiteness of swans;
I hate the movement that displaces lines,
And never do I weep and never do I laugh.

The poets, before my great attitudes,
Which I seem to borrow from the proudest monuments,
Will consume their days in austere studies;

For I have, to fascinate these docile lovers,
Pure mirrors that make all things more beautiful:
My eyes, my wide eyes with eternal clarities!

Charles Baudelaire

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