By Charles Baudelaire
Translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Think, would it not be
Sweet to live with me
All alone, my child, my love? —
Sleep together, share
All things, in that fair
Country you remind me of?
Charming in the dawn
There, the half-withdrawn
Drenched, mysterious sun appears
In the curdled skies,
Treacherous as your eyes
Shining from behind their tears.
There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.
We should have a room
Never out of bloom:
Tables polished by the palm
Of the vanished hours
Should reflect rare flowers
In that amber-scented calm;
Ceilings richly wrought,
Mirrors deep as thought,
Walls with eastern splendor hung,
All should speak apart
To the homesick heart
In its own dear native tongue.
There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.
See, their voyage past,
To their moorings fast,
On the still canals asleep,
These big ships; to bring
You some trifling thing
They have braved the furious deep.
— Now the sun goes down,
Tinting dyke and town,
Field, canal, all things in sight,
Hyacinth and gold;
All that we behold
Slumbers in its ruddy light.
There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.
--------
So apparently I am either having allergies, or my sinuses are upset from all the dust from cleaning yesterday, or the migraine that came in with this evening's storm has settled in my sinuses, or despite having seen few of my friends in days I have managed to catch a cold, but in any case my head is stuffed right now and I feel incoherent. It was not an exciting day, anyway, despite being older son's 25th birthday -- we Skyped him briefly, but he was on his way out to go play mini golf with friends.
We were supposed to have dinner with Karen and Jim, but postponed till tomorrow because of the weather, so we ate leftovers. I had to turn off the news so I wouldn't throw up and ended up watching a bit of Iron Man 3 on USA, which put me in the mood to watch the whole thing, and we did. Here are some photos from Honfleur, including the plaque commemorating Champlain's 1608 departure to found Quebec, the 14th century church that is now a marine museum, and the view Monet painted that has changed little:
No comments:
Post a Comment