FLOWERS OF EVIL. BY CHARLES BAUDELAIRE. [1821-1867.] I. I ADORE thee as much as the vaults of night, O vase full of grief, taciturnity great, And I love thee the more because of thy flight. It seemeth, my night's beautifier, that you Still heap up those leagues-yes! ironically heap!— I advance to attack, I climb to assault, Like a choir of young worms at a corpse in the vault; Yet heightens thy beauty, on which my eyes feast! II. Two warriors come running, to fight they begin, The rapiers are broken! and so is our youth, In the ditch, where the ounce and the pard have their lair, Our heroes have rolled in an angry embrace; Their skin blooms on brambles that erewhile were bare. That ravine is a fiend-inhabited hell! Then let us roll in, oh woman inhuman, To immortalize hatred that nothing can quell! THE BLESSED DAMOZEL. BY DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. [GABRIEL CHARLES DANTE ROSSETTI, English poet and artist, was the son of a refugee Italian patriot and poet, and was born in London, May 12, 1828. His early ambitions and efforts were all in the line of pictorial art, and in 1848 he took part in founding the Preraphaelite Brotherhood; and all his life his first thought of himself was as artist. But his larger side in capacity was the poetical and though not great in bulk, his poetry stands next to the very highest rank in English verse. His great ballads, "Sister Helen," "Rose Mary," "The King's Tragedy," and "The White Ship"; "The Blessed Damozel" (written at nineteen); "A Last Confession,' 'Jenny," etc., are imperishable. April 9, 1882.] 99 66 He died So high, that looking downward thence, It lies in Heaven, across the flood Beneath, the tides of day and night Around her, lovers, newly met 'Mid deathless love's acclaims, Spoke evermore among themselves Their heart-remembered names; And the souls mounting up to God. Went by her like thin flames. And still she bowed herself and stooped Until her bosom must have made The bar she leaned on warm, And the lilies lay as if asleep Along her bended arm. From the fixed place of Heaven she saw Time like a pulse shake fierce Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove Within the gulf to pierce Its path; and now she spoke as when The sun was gone now; the curled moon Fluttering far down the gulf; and now (Ah sweet! even now, in that bird's song, Fain to be hearkened? When those bells Strove not her steps to reach my side Down all the echoing stair?) |