PAYSAGE / LANDSCAPE FROM TABLEAUX PARISIENS - BAUDELAIRE

 

                                                                                   

LXXXVI. – PAYSAGE

 

Je veux, pour composer chastement mes églogues ,

Coucher auprès du ciel , comme les astrologues,

Et, voisin des clocher, écouter en révant

Leurs hymnes solennels emportés par le vent.

Les deux mains au menton, du haut de ma mansarde,

Je verrai l’atelier qui chante et qui bavarde ;

Les tuyaux, les clochers, ces mats de la cité ,

Et les grands ciel qui font réver d’éternité.

 

Il est doux, à travers les brumes, de voir naitre

L’étoile dans l’azur, la lampe à la fenêtre,

Les fleuves de charbon monter au firmament

Et la lune verser son pale enchantement.ûJe verrai les printemps, les étés, les automnes ;

Et quand viendra l’hiver aux neiges monotones,

Je fermerai partout  portières et volets

Pour bâtir dans la nuit mes féeriques palais.

Alors je rêverai des horizons bleuâtres,

Des jardins, des jets d’eaux pleurant dans les albâtres,

Des baisers, des oiseaux chantant soir et matin,

Et tout ce que l’Idylle a de plus enfantin.

L’Emeute, tempêtant vainement à ma vitre,

Ne fera pas lever mon front de mon pupitre ;

Car je serai plongé dans cette volupté

D’évoquer le Printemps avec ma volonté,

De tirer un soleil de mon cœur, et de faire

De mes pensers brûlants une tiède atmosphere.

 

 

LXXXVI. – LANDSCAPE

 

In order to compose chastely my eclogues, I want

To sleep under the sky, like the astrologers,

And, under the bells, dream

Upon the solemn hymns transported on the winds.

Up in the attic, with both hands under my chin,

Where I’d see in the atelier those who’d sing and talk ;

The pipes, the bells, those staples of the city,

And the great skies which make you dream of eternity.

 

Among the fog, it is only natural, to see come alive

The stars in the azure, the lamp at a window,

The rivers of coal smoke rising to greet the firmament

And the moon then versing its enchantment.

I’ll see the spring, summers and autumns ;

And when the winters come with their monotonous snow,

Everywhere I’ll close up the doors and the shutters

In order to construct my dreamy palace.

And then I will dream of bluer horizons,

Gardens, jets of water spurting from the alabaster,

Those kisses, the birds singing night and day,

And all that is idyllic and the most infantile.

Storms raving at my window

Will not force me to lift my head from my desk;

For I will be lost in that voluptuousness

Evoking the spring at my bidding,

Taking the sun from my heart, and making

My burning thoughts gently acclimatise.

 

 

What I love about this poem by Baudelaire is the completely unexpected innocence of it, situated particularly after the tumult of splenetic poems which completes the first section of Les Fleurs Du Mal, this poem, as the instigator of a completely new section of the book – Tableaux Parisiens – it allows us the readers, and no doubt the poet or author too, time to recalibrate and start anew. Remember, section II Tableaux Parisiens unlike section I, Spleen et Idéal, will be grounded in the real world, as it were, as opposed to the ideal projections which we encountered in the first section, and this is an aspect of Les Fleurs Du Mal which must really be taken into account. Baudelaire really is ahead of his time, predating phenomenology by over half a century, and yet what is the book but a complete phenomenological exploration of the human soul, in all its many diverse aspects. This is why Baudelaire needs to be continuously assessed as a poet, particularly today, as the almost two-dimensional image of him as the eternal poète maudit  simply does not stand up to scrutiny. Again, the ‘lazy’ reading which has become endemic of our times is all too easy and futile. Rather, when you engage with the book, over a series of readings which often take place at numerous times during your life ( typically youth, middle-age, and old age ) what one in fact finds, as with all canonical works, is that the truth of a work of art of the calibre of Les Fleurs Du Mal , rather like the author who composed it, is far more complex than one might have ever expected which is why Re-readings are so important. And of course, one could add to that, Re-translations – transversions!