funds for a school or hospital,
leaves money to certain companions to buy tokens, souvenirs of gems
and gold.
But I, my life surveying, closing,
with nothing to show to devise from its idle years,
nor houses nor lands,
nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends,
yet certain remembrances of the war for you,
and after you,
and little souvenirs of camps and soldiers, with my love,
I bind together and bequeath in this bundle of songs.
O Captain! My Captain2
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
the ship has weathered every rack,
the prize we sought is won,
the port is near, the bells I hear,
the people all exulting,
while follow eyes the steady keel,
the vessel grim and daring;
but O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
where on the deck my Captain lies,
fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain!
Rise up and hear the bells;
rise up—for you the flag is flung—
for you the bugle trills,
for you bouquets and ribboned wreaths—
for you the shores a-crowding,
for you they call, the swaying mass,
their eager faces turning;
here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
you’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer,
his lips are pale and still,
my father does not feel my arm,
he has no pulse nor will,
the ship is anchored safe and sound,
its voyage closed and done,
from fearful trip the victor ship
comes in with object won;
exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
walk the deck my Captain lies,
fallen cold and dead.
Song of Prudence1
Manhattan’s streets I sauntered pondering,
on Time, Space, Reality—
on such as these, and abreast with them Prudence.
The last explanation always remains
to be made about prudence,
little and large alike drop quietly aside
from the prudence that suits immortality.
The soul is of itself,
all verges to it, all has reference to what ensues,
all that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence,
not a move can a man or woman make,
that affects him or her in a day, month,
any part of the direct lifetime, or the hour of death,
but the same affects him or her onward afterward
through the indirect lifetime.
The indirect is just as much as the direct,
the spirit receives from the body
just as much as it gives to the body,
if not more.
Not one word or deed,
not venereal sore, discoloration,
privacy of the onanist,
putridity of gluttons or rum-drinkers,
peculation, cunning,
betrayal, murder, seduction, prostitution,
but has results beyond death as really
as before death.
Charity and personal force
are the only investments worth any thing.
No specification is necessary,
all that a male or female does,
that is vigorous, benevolent, clean,
is so much profit to him or her,
in the unshakable order of the universe
and through the whole scope of it forever.
Who has been wise receives interest,
savage, felon, President, judge,
farmer, sailor, mechanic, literat,
young, old, it is the same,
the interest will come round—all will come round.
Singly, wholly, to affect now,
affected their time, will forever affect,
all of the past and all of the present
and all of the future,
all the brave actions of war and peace,
all help given to relatives, strangers,
the poor, old, sorrowful,
young children, widows, the sick,
and to shunned persons,
all self-denial that stood steady and aloof
on wrecks, and saw
others fill the seats of the boats,
all offering of substance or life for the good old cause,
or for a friend’s sake,
or opinion’s sake,
all pains of enthusiasts scoffed at by their neighbors,
all the limitless sweet love
and precious suffering of mothers,
all honest men baffled in strifes
recorded or unrecorded,
all the grandeur and good of ancient nations
whose fragments we inherit,
all the good of the dozens of ancient nations
unknown to us by name, date, location,
all that was ever manfully begun,
whether it succeeded or no,
all suggestions of the divine mind of man
or the divinity of his mouth,
or the shaping of his great hands,
all that is well thought or said this day
on any part of the globe,
or on any of the wandering stars,
or on any of the fix’d stars,
by those there as we are here,
all that is henceforth to be thought
or done
by you whoever you are,
or by any one,
these inure, have inured, shall inure,
to the identities from which
they sprang, or shall spring.
Did you guess any thing lived only its moment?
The world does not so exist,
no parts palpable or impalpable so exist,
no consummation exists
without being from some long previous consummation,
and that from some other,
without the farthest conceivable one
coming a bit nearer the beginning than any.
Whatever satisfies souls is true;
prudence entirely satisfies the craving and glut of souls,
itself only finally satisfies the soul,
the soul has that measureless pride
which revolts from every lesson
but its own.
Now I breathe the word of the prudence
that walks abreast with time,
space, reality,
that answers the pride
which refuses every lesson but its own.
What is prudence is indivisible,
declines to separate one part of life from every part,
divides not the righteous from the unrighteous
or the living from the dead,
matches every thought or act by its correlative,
knows no possible forgiveness or deputed atonement,
knows that the young man
who composedly periled his life and lost it
has done exceedingly well for himself without doubt,
that he who never periled his life,
but retains it to old age in riches and ease,
has probably achieved
nothing for himself worth mentioning,
knows that only that person has really learned
who has learned to prefer results,
who favors body and soul the same,
who perceives the indirect assuredly following the direct,
who in his spirit in any emergency whatever
neither hurries nor avoids death.
This
Compost1
1
Something startles me where I thought I was safest,
I withdraw from the still woods I loved,
I will not go now on the pastures to walk,
I will not strip the clothes from my body
to meet my lover the sea,
I will not touch my flesh to the earth
as to other flesh to renew me.
O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?
How can you be alive you growths of spring?
How can you furnish health
you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?
Are they not continually putting distempered corpses
within you?
Is not every continent worked over and over
with sour dead?
Where have you disposed of their carcasses?
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations?
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?
I do not see any of it upon you today,
or perhaps I am deceived,
I will run a furrow with my plough,
I will press my spade through the sod
and turn it up underneath,
I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.
2
Behold this compost! behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once formed
part of a sick person—yet behold!
The grass of spring covers the prairies,
the bean bursts noiselessly
through the mould in the garden,
the delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
the apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,
the resurrection of the wheat appears
with pale visage out of its graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree
and the mulberry-tree,
the he-birds carol mornings and evenings while
the she-birds sit on their nests,
the young of poultry break through the hatched eggs,
the new-born of animals appear,
the calf is dropt from the cow,
the colt from the mare,
out of its little hill faithfully rise
the potato’s dark green leaves,
out of its hill rises
the yellow maize-stalk,
the lilacs bloom in the dooryards,
the summer growth is innocent and disdainful
above all those strata of sour dead.
What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
that this is no cheat,
this transparent green-wash of the sea
which is so amorous after me,
that it is safe
to allow it to lick my naked body all over
with its tongues,
that it will not endanger me with the fevers
that have deposited themselves in it,
that all is clean forever and forever,
that the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
that blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
that the fruits of the apple-orchard
and the orange-orchard,
that melons, grapes, peaches, plums,
will none of them poison me,
that when I recline on the grass
I do not catch any disease,
though probably every spear of grass
rises out of what was once catching disease.
Now I am terrified at the Earth,
it is that calm and patient,
it grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
it turns harmless and stainless on its axis,
with such endless successions of diseased corpses,
it distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
it renews with such unwitting looks
its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
it gives such divine materials to men,
and accepts such leavings from them at last.
When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer1
When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
when the proofs, the figures,
were ranged in columns before me;
when I was shown the charts and the diagrams,
to add, divide, and measure them;
when I, sitting, heard the astronomer,
where he lectured with much applause
in the lecture-room,
how soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
till rising and gliding out, I wandered off by myself,
in the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
looked up in perfect silence at the stars.
Charles Baudelaire (1821 – 1867)
A Carrion1
Translated by Sir John SQuire
Rememberest thou, my sweet, that summer’s day,
how in the sun outspread
at a path’s bend a filthy carcass lay
upon a pebbly bed?
Like a lewd woman, with its legs in air,
burned, oozed the poisonous mass;
its gaping belly, calm and debonair,
was full of noisome gas.
And steadily upon this rottenness,
as though to cook it brown
and render Nature hundredfold excess,
the sun shone down.
The blue sky thought the carrion marvelous,
a flower most fair to see;
and as we gazed it almost poisoned us—
it stank so horribly.
The flies buzzed on this putrid belly, whence
black hosts of maggots came,
which streamed in thick and shining rivers thence
along that ragged frame.
Pulsating like a wave, spurting about
bright jets, it seemed to live;
as though it were by some vague wind blown out,
some breath procreative.
And all this life was strangely musical
like wind or bubbling spring,
or corn which moves with rhythmic rise and fall
in time of winnowing.
The lines became indefinite and faint
as a thin dream that dies,
a half-forgotten scene the hand can paint
only from memories …
Behind the rocks there lurked a hungry hound
with melancholy eye,
longing to nose the morsel he had found
and gnaw it greedily.
Yet thou shalt be as vile a carrion
as this infection dire,
O bright star of my eyes, my nature’s sun,
my angel, my desire!
Yea, such, O queen of the graces, shalt thou be
after the last soft breath,
beneath the grass and the lush greenery
a-moldering in death!
When they sweet flesh the worms devour with kisses,
tell them, O beauty mine,
of rotting loves I keep the bodily blisses
and essence all-divine!
from Fuses I – on Love1
Translated from the French by Norman Cameron
Love may arise from a generous sentiment—namely,
the liking for prostitution;
but it soon becomes corrupted
by the liking for ownership.
Love seeks to escape from itself,
to mingle itself with its victim,
as a victor nation with the vanquished—
and yet at the same time
to retain the privileges of a conqueror.
The sensual pleasures of a man who keeps a mistress
have in them something both of the angel
and of the proprietor.
Charity and ferocity.
from Fuses I — on Art1
Translated from the French by Norman Cameron
At a theater or ball,
each person is being pleasu
red by everybody else.
What is art?
Prostitution.
The pleasure of being in a crowd
is a mysterious expression of delight
in the multiplication of number.
Number is all, and in all,
number is within the individual.
Intoxication is a number.
from Fuses I — on God2
Translated from the French by Norman Cameron
Even if God did not exist,
religion would still be holy and divine.
God is the only being who, in order to rule,
does not need even to exist.
Creations of the mind are more alive than matter.
Heautontimoroumenos3
Translated by Lewis Piaget Shanks
I’ll strike thee without enmity
nor wrath,—like butchers at the block!
As Moses smote the living rock,
—till from thine eyelids’ agony
the springs of suffering shall flow
to slake the desert of my thirst;
and on that flood, my lust accurst
with Hope to fill its sails, shall go
as on the waves, a pitching barge,
and in my bosom quickening,
thy sobs and tears I love shall ring
loud as a drum that beats a charge!
For am I not a clashing note
in God’s eternal symphony,
thanks to this vulture, Irony,
whose talons rend my heart and throat?
She’s in my voice, the screaming elf!
My poisoned blood came all from her!
I am the mirror sinister
wherein the vixen sees herself!
I am the wound and I the knife!
I am the blow I give, and feel!
I am the broken limbs, the wheel,
the hangman and the strangled life!
I am my heart’s own vampire, for
I walk alone, condemned, forlorn,
by laughter everlasting torn,
yet doomed to smile, —ah, nevermore!
Metamorphoses of the Vampire1
Translated by George Dillon
Meanwhile from her red mouth the woman,
in husky tones,
twisting her body like a serpent upon hot stones
and straining her white breasts
from their imprisonment,
let fall these words, as potent as a heavy scent:
“My lips are moist and yielding, and I know the way
to keep the antique demon of remorse at bay.
All sorrows die upon my bosom. I can make
old men laugh happily as children for my sake.
The Giant Book of Poetry (2006) Page 17
