my translation of Baudelaire, Hymn À la Beauté.
Do you come down from the depths of the sky or out of the abyss,
O Beauty? Your gaze, infernal and divine,
Pours confusedly beneficence and crime,
And we may may for that liken you to wine.
You contain in your eye the setting sun and the dawn;
You spread perfumes like an evening storm;
Your kisses are a potion and your mouth a cask
Which makes heroes cowardly and children courageous.
Do you come out of some black chasm or descend from the stars?
Charmed destiny rides your coattails as a dog;
You scatter to fate joy and disasters,
And you govern all and never reply.
You step over corpses, Beauty, whom you mock;
Of your jewelry, Horror is not the least charming,
And Murder, among the most dear charms,
On your proud belly dance amorously.
The ephemeral sparks fly across you, candle,
Crackle, flame, and say: bless this conflagration!
The amorous panting inclined on his beauty
Has the air of the deathbound caressing his grave.
Which do you come from – the star or the inferno, what does it matter?
O Beauty! Enormous monster, dreadful, naive!
If your eye, your smile, your foot could open for for me the door
To some infinity, that I would love and have never known?
From Satan or from G-d, what does it matter? Angel or siren,
What does it matter, if you make – fairy with velvet eyes,
Rhythm, perfume, flash, o my unique queen! --
The universe less hideous and the instants less heavy?
for whatever reason, mastodon isnt being very cooperative with my formatting, so please excuse my line breaks.