INVITATION TO A JOURNEY

by: Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)

      y sister, my dear
      Consider how fair,
      Together to live it would be!
      Down yonder to fly
      To love, till we die,
      In the land which resembles thee.
      Those suns that rise
      'Neath erratic skies,
      —No charm could be like unto theirs—
      So strange and divine,
      Like those eyes of thine
      Which glow in the midst of their tears.

      There, all is order and loveliness,
      Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.

      The tables and chairs,
      Polished bright by the years,
      Would decorate sweetly our rooms,
      And the rarest of flowers
      Would twine round our bowers
      And mingle their amber perfumes:
      The ceilings arrayed,
      And the mirrors inlaid,
      This Eastern splendour among,
      Would furtively steal
      O'er our souls, and appeal
      With its tranquillous native tongue.

      There, all is order and loveliness,
      Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.

      In the harbours, peep,
      At the vessels asleep
      (Their humour is always to roam),
      Yet it is but to grant
      Thy smallest want
      From the ends of the earth that they come,
      The sunsets beam
      Upon meadow and stream,
      And upon the city entire
      'Neath a violet crest,
      The world sinks to rest,
      Illumed by a golden fire.

      There, all is order and loveliness,
      Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.

"Invitation to a Journey" is reprinted from The Flowers of Evil. Charles Baudelaire. London: Elkin Mathews, 1909.

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