By Charles Baudelaire
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me recite the original in French
Like angels with beast-savage eyes
I'll come back where your bedroom lies
And glide in soundlessly, in flight
With all the shadows of the night.
And we, dark darling, will commune
In kisses icy as the moon,
Caresses like a serpent's twitch
Crawling its way around a ditch.
Come morning with his livid face
You will find no one in my place
Where cold will cling till night is near.
As others do by tenderness
Over your life and youthfulness,
Come morning with his livid face
You will find no one in my place
Where cold will cling till night is near.
As others do by tenderness
Over your life and youthfulness,
I want to hold my sway by fear.
The Original:
Le Revenant
Comme les anges à l'oeil fauve,
Je reviendrai dans ton alcôve
Et vers toi glisserai sans bruit
Avec les ombres de la nuit;
Et je te donnerai, ma brune,
Des baisers froids comme la lune
Et des caresses de serpent
Autour d'une fosse rampant.
Quand viendra le matin livide,
Tu trouveras ma place vide,
Où jusqu'au soir il fera froid.
Comme d'autres par la tendresse,
Sur ta vie et sur ta jeunesse,
Moi, je veux régner par l'effroi.
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It's a pleasure to read more Baudelaire. I always preferred him rather than Rimbaud, unlike many of the previous generation of Australian poets. That combination of poet and critic has always appealed to me.
ReplyDeleteBTW: regarding the voting system, I don't, as I feel it asks me to rate the translations as translations, rather than as poems in their own right, and since I cannot do so, I feel I cannot add anything meaningful.