THE IDEAL
by: Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)
- t could ne'er be those beauties of ivory vignettes;
- The varied display of a worthless age,
- Nor puppet-like figures with castonets,
- That ever an heart like mine could engage.
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- I leave to Gavarni, that poet of chlorosis,
- His hospital-beauties in troups that whirl,
- For I cannot discover amid his pale roses
- A flower to resemble my scarlet ideal.
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- Since, what for this fathomless heart I require
- IsLady Macbeth you! in crime so dire;
- An Æschylus dream transposed from the South
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- Or thee, oh great "Night" of Michael-Angelo born,
- Who so calmly thy limbs in strange posture hath drawn,
- Whose allurements are framed for a Titan's mouth.
"The Ideal" is reprinted from The Flowers of Evil. Charles Baudelaire. London: Elkin Mathews, 1909. |
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