A Poem for Thursday

Through my trawling the web for information for the painting workshop on synaesthesia recently,  I discovered the poetry of Baudelaire. having just had our annual beach holiday in Spain this one in particular seems appropriate. But others may pop up in weeks to come.

Man and the Sea

Free man, you will always cherish the sea!

The sea is your mirror; you contemplate your soul

In the infinite unrolling of it's billows;

Your mind is an abyss that is no less bitter.

You like to plunge into the bosom of your image;

You embrace it with eyes and arms,and your heart

Is distracted at times from its own clamoring

By the sound of this pliant, wild and untamable.

Both of you are gloomy and reticent:

Man, noone has sounded the depths of your being;

Oh sea, no person knows your most hidden riches,

So zealously do you keep your secrets!

Yet for countless ages you have fought each other

Without pity, without remorse,

So fiercely do you love carnage and death,

O eternal fighters, implacable brothers!

From -Les Fleurs du Mal by Baudelaire

_translated from the French by William Aggeler

(Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)