Le Soleil

Any and all free time that I can possibly foresee for the next month will be eaten up by a dashing young gentleman and his dashing young pile of LSAT books. I see this as a blessing. The less time for idleness, the less time for melodrama. It is just a very strange schedule that I have not quite gotten used to yet. The masses return on Sunday and I hope they won't interfere with the zen I have somehow managed to feel for the last week or so. Last night I sat knitting and listening to audio versions of some of Baudelaire's poems. Oddly enough, it was more relaxing than listening to music. Go figure.

This next poem is one we spent a decent amount of time on in class. It was also one of the few for which we had to turn in a written translation. However, it never really struck me much. Ah well, here it is.

The Sun
Along the old suburb, where hang in the shacks
The shutters, shelter of the secret lusts,
When the cruel sun strikes with increasing strokes
Over the city and the fields, over the roofs and the crops,
I go alone to practice my fanciful fencing,
Sniffing in all the corners the chances of rhyme,
Stumbling over words as over cobblestones
Colliding sometimes with verses dreamed long ago.

This nutritive father, enemy of chlorosis,
Awakens in the fields the verses like roses;
He makes worries vanish toward the sky,
And fills the minds and the hives with honey.
It is he who rejuvenates the crutch-bearers
And makes them sweet and joyful like young girls,
And commands the harvest to grow and to ripen
In the immortal heart that always wants to blossom!

When, like a poet, he descends into the cities,
He ennobles the fate of the more loathsome things,
And introduces himself as a king, without noise and without servants,
Into all the hospitals and into all the palaces.

Le Soleil
Le long du vieux faubourg, où pendent aux masures
Les persiennes, abri des sécrètes luxures,
Quand le soleil cruel frappe à traits redoublés
Sur la ville et les champs, sur les toits et les blés,
Je vais m'exercer seul à ma fantasque escrime,
Flairant dans tous les coins les hasards de la rime,
Trébuchant sur les mots comme sur les pavés
Heurtant parfois des vers depuis longtemps rêvés.

Ce père nourricier, ennemi des chloroses,
Eveille dans les champs les vers comme les roses;
II fait s'évaporer les soucis vers le ciel,
Et remplit les cerveaux et les ruches le miel.
C'est lui qui rajeunit les porteurs de béquilles
Et les rend gais et doux comme des jeunes filles,
Et commande aux moissons de croître et de mûrir
Dans le coeur immortel qui toujours veut fleurir!

Quand, ainsi qu'un poète, il descend dans les villes,
II ennoblit le sort des choses les plus viles,
Et s'introduit en roi, sans bruit et sans valets,
Dans tous les hôpitaux et dans tous les palais.