The Flask

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

There are strong perfumes for which all matter is porous.
One would say they penetrate glass.
In opening a casket come from the Orient
Whose lock grates and resists with a creaking,

Or in a deserted house some cupboard
Full of the acrid odor of time, dusty and black,
Sometimes one finds an old flask that remembers,
From which springs alive a soul that returns.

A thousand thoughts slept, funereal chrysalides,
Trembling gently in the heavy darkness,
Which release their wings and take their flight,
Tinted with azure, glazed with rose, plated with gold.

There is the intoxicating memory that flutters
In the troubled air; eyes close; Vertigo
Seizes the conquered soul and pushes it with both hands
Toward a gulf darkened by human miasmas;

It strikes it down at the edge of an ancient gulf,
Where, Lazarus fragrant tearing his shroud,
Moves in its awakening the spectral corpse
Of an old rancid love, charming and sepulchral.

Thus, when I shall be lost in the memory
Of men, in the corner of a sinister cupboard
When I have been thrown, old desolate flask,
Decrepit, dusty, dirty, abject, viscous, cracked,

I shall be your coffin, amiable pestilence!
The witness of your force and your virulence,
Dear poison prepared by the angels! Liquor
That gnaws me, O the life and death of my heart!

Charles Baudelaire

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