The Beacons

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

Rubens, river of forgetfulness, garden of idleness,
Pillow of fresh flesh where one cannot love,
But where life flows in and stirs without cease,
Like air in the sky and the sea in the sea;

Leonardo da Vinci, deep and dark mirror,
Where charming angels, with a sweet smile
All laden with mystery, appear in the shadow
Of glaciers and pines that close off their land,

Rembrandt, sad hospital all filled with murmurs,
And adorned with only a great crucifix,
Where prayer in tears exhales from the filth,
And pierced suddenly by a wintry ray;

Michelangelo, vague place where one sees Hercules
Mingling with Christs, and standing upright
Powerful phantoms who in the twilights
Tear their shrouds in stretching their fingers;

Boxer’s angers, faun’s shamelessness,
You who knew how to gather the beauty of louts,
Great heart swollen with pride, frail and yellow man,
Puget, melancholy emperor of convicts,

Watteau, that carnival where many illustrious hearts,
Like butterflies, wander in flame,
Fresh and light decors lit by chandeliers
That pour madness into this whirling ball;

Goya, nightmare full of unknown things,
Of fetuses cooked in the midst of sabbaths,
Of old women at the mirror and completely naked children,
To tempt the demons carefully adjusting their stockings;
Delacroix, lake of blood haunted by evil angels,
Shaded by a wood of ever-green firs,
Where, under a sorrowful sky, strange fanfares
Pass, like a stifled sigh of Weber;

These curses, these blasphemies, these laments,
These ecstasies, these cries, these tears, these Te Deums,
Are an echo repeated by a thousand labyrinths;
It is for mortal hearts a divine opium!

It is a cry repeated by a thousand sentinels,
An order relayed by a thousand speaking-trumpets;
It is a beacon lit on a thousand citadels,
A call of hunters lost in the great woods!

For it is truly, Lord, the best testimony
That we can give of our dignity
That this ardent sob that rolls from age to age
And comes to die at the edge of your eternity!

Charles Baudelaire

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