La Beauté (Beauty)
Charles Beaudelaire
I am beautiful, o mortals! Like a dream of stone,
And my breast, where each one bruises himself in turn,
Is made to inspire love, in the poet,
Eternal and mute as matter.
I am throned in the azure like a sphinx, misunderstood;
I level the heart of snow with the whiteness of swans;
hate the movement which displaces lines,
And I never cry, I never laugh.
The poets, before my grand attitudes,
Borrowed from the proudest monuments,
Consume their days in studious austerity;
Since I have, to fascinate these docile lovers,
Pure mirrors that make all things more beautiful:
My eyes, my large eyes of eternal clarity!
Translated by EC
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