Le Guignon/La Vie anterieure

I am not terribly thrilled about squishing poems together, as I firmly believe that each should stand on its own and be admired. However, I am translating at a fairly rapid rate and I want to make sure that everything gets posted. I blame this on my job and the fact that I have heinous amounts of free time during the workday to spend with Baudelaire. But the poems are short, and any poems of particular significance either to myself or to anyone else will be given the proper attention.

I saw him yesterday, the first time since I heard the bad news. He was just sitting, smoking probably. His back turned toward me, he was talking with one of his friends and one of my friends. I could not bring myself to speak to him. I just walked by. Then I hid for awhile. Soon after that it rained.

I have no doubt that he thinks of me when it pours. I find the titles of these poems bitterly appropriate.

Bad Luck
In order to lift a weight that heavy,
Sisyphus, it requires your courage!
Good that one has his heart to the work,
Art is long and Time is short!

Far from celebrated sepulcher
Towards an isolated cemetery,
My heart, like a muffled drum,
Goes beating funeral marches.

—Many a jewel sleeps buried
In the darkness and oblivion,
Quite far from picks and probes;

Many a flower exhales with regret
His perfume sweet like a secret
In the deep solitudes.

Le Guignon
Pour soulever un poids si lourd,
Sisyphe, il faudrait ton courage!
Bien qu'on ait du coeur à l'ouvrage,
L'Art est long et le Temps est court.

Loin des sépultures célèbres,
Vers un cimetière isolé,
Mon coeur, comme un tambour voilé,
Va battant des marches funèbres.

— Maint joyau dort enseveli
Dans les ténèbres et l'oubli,
Bien loin des pioches et des sondes;

Mainte fleur épanche à regret
Son parfum doux comme un secret
Dans les solitudes profondes.

The Past Life
I have long lived under vast porticos
That the seaward suns dyed with a thousand lights,
And that their great pillars, upright and majestic,
Rendered such, in the evening, like basaltic grottos.

The billows, in rolling the images of the skies,
Mingled in a solemn and mystique manner
All-powerful chords of their full-bodied music
With the color of the sunset reflected in my eyes.

It is there that I have lived in the voluptuous calms
In the middle of the blue, the waves, the splendors
And naked slaves, pervaded with odor,

That cooled my brow with palms
And whose only care was to fathom
The painful secret that made me languish.

La Vie antérieure
J'ai longtemps habité sous de vastes portiques
Que les soleils marins teignaient de mille feux,
Et que leurs grands piliers, droits et majestueux,
Rendaient pareils, le soir, aux grottes basaltiques.

Les houles, en roulant les images des cieux,
Mêlaient d'une façon solennelle et mystique
Les tout-puissants accords de leur riche musique
Aux couleurs du couchant reflété par mes yeux.

C'est là que j'ai vécu dans les voluptés calmes,
Au milieu de l'azur, des vagues, des splendeurs
Et des esclaves nus, tout imprégnés d'odeurs,

Qui me rafraîchissaient le front avec des palmes,
Et dont l'unique soin était d'approfondir
Le secret douloureux qui me faisait languir.