Le Chat

Perhaps the timing of this poem is a bit inappropriate since our real cat has been keeping me and K. up at night with his pitiful yowling. Nobody else in the house has to deal with it, or else they just sleep more soundly. This poem is also not to be confused with the one posted several weeks earlier. Baudelaire just likes cats, it seems.

Began a massive smear campaign. The beauty is gone. Ash to ash. So help me God, I hope I never have to speak to him again. Or I will only speak to him in butchered French. Right.

The Cat

I.
In my brain there walks
As in his own tenement,
A beautiful cat, strong, sweet, and charming.
When he mews, one barely hears him.

All of his timbre is tender and subdued,
But his voice calming or growling,
Is always lush and deep.
That is his charm and his secret.

That voice, that pearls and that filters
Into my depths most dark,
Fills me with a plentiful verse
And delights me like a philter.

It sends to sleep the cruelest harms
And contains all the ecstasies;
In order to say the longest sentences
It has no need of words.

No, there is no bow that goes
Over my heart, perfect instrument,
And makes most regally
Its most vibrant chord to sing,

Than your voice, mysterious cat,
Seraphic cat, strange cat,
In whom all is, as in an angel,
As subtle as harmony!

II.
From his fur blonde and brown
Goes out a sweet perfume, that one evening
I was embalmed in, in order to have it
Caress one time, no more than one.

It is a familiar spirit in that place;
He judges, he presides over, he inspires
All things in his empire,
Perhaps he is a fairy, he is a god?

When my eyes, toward that cat which I love
Pulled as if by a magnet,
Returns docilely
And when I look into myself,

I see with amazement
The fire of his pale pupils,
Clear headlights, living opals

Which contemplate me fixedly.

Le Chat

I.

Dans ma cervelle se promène,
Ainsi qu'en son appartement,
Un beau chat, fort, doux et charmant.
Quand il miaule, on l'entend à peine,

Tant son timbre est tendre et discret;
Mais que sa voix s'apaise ou gronde,
Elle est toujours riche et profonde.
C'est là son charme et son secret.

Cette voix, qui perle et qui filtre
Dans mon fonds le plus ténébreux,
Me remplit comme un vers nombreux
Et me réjouit comme un philtre.

Elle endort les plus cruels maux
Et contient toutes les extases;
Pour dire les plus longues phrases,
Elle n'a pas besoin de mots.

Non, il n'est pas d'archet qui morde
Sur mon coeur, parfait instrument,
Et fasse plus royalement
Chanter sa plus vibrante corde,

Que ta voix, chat mystérieux,
Chat séraphique, chat étrange,
En qui tout est, comme en un ange,
Aussi subtil qu'harmonieux!

II.

De sa fourrure blonde et brune
Sort un parfum si doux, qu'un soir
J'en fus embaumé, pour l'avoir
Caressée une fois, rien qu'une.

C'est l'esprit familier du lieu;
Il juge, il préside, il inspire
Toutes choses dans son empire;
peut-être est-il fée, est-il dieu?

Quand mes yeux, vers ce chat que j'aime
Tirés comme par un aimant,
Se retournent docilement
Et que je regarde en moi-même,

Je vois avec étonnement
Le feu de ses prunelles pâles,
Clairs fanaux, vivantes opales
Qui me contemplent fixement.