Evening Harmony
Evening Harmony
Original Text
Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, ed. Josef Nygrin, trans. William Aggeler (1954), Roy Campbell (1952), Cat Nilan (1999), Geoffrey Wagner (1974), Kenneth O. Hanson (1955), and David Paul (1955). Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial Licence, 2008. 151-52.
1The season is at hand when swaying on its stem
2Every flower exhales perfume like a censer;
3Sounds and perfumes turn in the evening air;
4Melancholy waltz and languid vertigo!
5Every flower exhales perfume like a censer;
6The violin quivers like a tormented heart;
7Melancholy waltz and languid vertigo!
8The sky is sad and beautiful like an immense altar.
9The violin quivers like a tormented heart,
10A tender heart, that hates the vast, black void!
11The sky is sad and beautiful like an immense altar;
12The sun has drowned in his blood which congeals...
13A tender heart that hates the vast, black void
14Gathers up every shred of the luminous past!
15The sun has drowned in his blood which congeals...
16Your memory in me glitters like a monstrance!
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
Data entry: Sharine Leung
RPO Edition
2012
Rhyme
Form