Summary
“The Living Torch”
The brilliant eyes of the poet's beloved march on, their light able to magnetize both Angels and the poet. He believes they save him from sin and lead him to Beauty; they are his servants and he is their slave. He obeys this living torch. And exults in how her eyes glimmer and glow and praise the Dead. They seem as if they awaken his soul.
“To One Who Is Too Cheerful”
The poet insouciantly notes that her head, air, smile, and eyes are lovely as the countryside and fresh wind. Her brilliancy dazzles the “gloomy drudge” and her bright colors make poets imagine a ballet of colors. Her robes are as mad as she is; and, he states suddenly, he too is mad and hates her as he loves her.
Sometimes he brings his apathy to a park and sits there while the sunlight pierces him. Spring offends and humiliates him so he pulls a flower apart to punish Nature. He wishes he could creep toward her while she slept and bruise her breast, cut her side, and hurt her flesh. He would pour his venom lovingly into her red lips.
“Reversibility”
The poet thinks of his beloved as an Angel of gladness, wondering if she knows of anguish, pain, shame, night terrors. He thinks of her as an Angel of kindness and asks if she knows hatred, Vengeance and his will of revenge; Angel of health, does she know fevers, hospitals, disease? Angel of beauty, does she know of wrinkles, aging, lines? Angel of fortune, happiness, and light: King David on his death-bed may have had use for her, but Baudelaire desires only her prayers.
“Confession”
The poet remember his beloved's smooth arm on his. It was late and the moon beamed in the “solemnity / Of night.” Cats passed by stealthily and walked with them as phantoms. Suddenly his beloved sang out a wistful and strange note with her rich voice; her manner like a ruined young girl who had been hidden by her ashamed family for years. She sang of how difficult it was to be a beauty, how hard it was to trust in hearts. It seems that beauty and love are ephemeral, and Darkness descends. He often thinks of this moment of her “heart’s confessional.”
“The Spiritual Dawn”
Dawn breaks like the Ideal. The lost man feels pierced and entranced by the blue Spiritual Skies. A vision of the Goddess rises up above the sordid orgies and their waste. The sun blackens candles, and her spirit does the same for the poet; she is a glorious conquering being, and she redeems him from his night of sin.
“The Harmony of Evening”
It is almost the time when flowers exude their scent and perfumes mingle in the night air. Violins tremble and the mournful, languid waltz ensues. The sky is lovely and sad as it spreads out like an altar-cloth.
However, the sun drowns in its “dark, congealing blood.” The poet observes that it is a vulnerable heart that hates to slip away to non-being. It drowns, but the poet strives to remember his beloved, seeing himself like a receptacle in a church that contains the body of Christ.
“The Flask”
Baudelaire muses how strong scents cannot be contained even in a glass or vial, such as an Oriental chest or a musty, dank closet in a house that is “full of the smell of time.” One finds this “flask of memories” and it is like a soul returned to life. Thoughts were captured there, packed and closed off. Now with the fragrance they take flight, tinged with gold and blue. They glide into the brain and memory fills the air in the room. The eyes close, Vertigo grabs the soul and forces her to lie next to a tomb with a scent like Lazarus awakening. When the poet is entombed, closed up in a house, thrown away, rejected and filthy, he glibly acknowledges that he will be a tomb, a flask for pestilence.
“Poison”
Wine makes an ugly hole wondrous and the porticos glow in red vapors. Opium expands and stretches time; it deepens it, makes the soul helpless with its pleasures.
These intoxicants do not compare, Baudelaire writes, to the poison of his beloved’s eyes, those green lakes where his soul indulges and his dreams drown. And those eyes are not as powerful as her saliva, which disturbs and dizzies his soul.
“Misty Sky”
Baudelaire’s beloved’s face is hidden, her mystic, tender, and merciless eye reflecting only the pale indifference of the heavens. She seems like white and mild days, or heavens glowing by sun in the rain. Both weather and woman seduce the poet, but he wonders if he can delight in her ruthless frost and snow as well.
“The Cat”
A cat strolls through the poet’s mind like it owns it. He is lovely, strong, and has a tender and low meow. His voice is always deep and rich whether he growls or purrs; it filters into the poet’s soul’s depths and fulfills him like poetry, like potion. It puts his ills to sleep and controls his ecstasies. There is no bow drawn across his heart that can make a sound like the cat’s, his mysterious, exotic, seraphic feline.
A scent so sweet emanates from his golden fur; the poet dreams of being embalmed in it. The cat presides over his “royal realm” and could be a fairy or a god. Baudelaire looks at this cat he loves and then turns back and looks inward at himself, seeing within the cat’s glowing, jewel-like eyes “taking [the poet’s] measure.”
“The Splendid Ship”
Enchantress, the poet announces, let me tell you of your charms both childlike and mature. Your skirt, he says, is like a breeze in a ship’s sails, your stately head atop your plump shoulders triumphant. Your bosom juts out victoriously like shields with pink tips. You are filled with secret gifts and perfumes and wines. your legs inspire and torment like two witches stirring a concoction. Your strong arms rival baby Hercules’s and can crush your lover. Go your stately way, “majestic child,” the poet bids her adieu.
“Invitation to the Voyage”
My sister, my child, Baudelaire writes, think of how sweet it would be to live in a beautiful land like lovers and kiss, die, and love as we want. In that land of vaporous suns and shifting skies all is leisure, order, and pleasure. Tables glow to decorate their room and fragrance of flowers blends with that of perfumes. The ceilings are rich and the mirrors deep, all reminiscent of the east. All is leisure, order, pleasure.
The canals hold ships at rest, but they’d travel around the world for her if it were her whim. The sun sets and clothes the town with gold. All fall asleep. There it is leisure, order, and pleasure.
“The Irreparable”
Baudelaire mournfully asks how one can one kill and choke Remorse, which writhes within man like worms devouring the dead. He cannot even see how wine or philter can drown this poison as deadly as a prostitute. He begs his sorceress love to tell him if she knows how this is possible. His soul is anguished and trampled as under horses’ hooves. He feels like he is dying and the wolf is already sniffing him.
He moans: can there be light in the black sky, this sky thick like pitch and without stars? Hope, like a light extinguished in the window of an inn, is gone; Satan has blown it out. Does his enchantress know the damned? Does she know Remorse? This Irreparable gnaws his soul and invades it at its base like termites.
Even though he once saw a fairy light up “the miracle of dawn” in a trashy theater and saw a Being of light lay Satan to waste, the poet's heart is only a “sad playhouse,” where he waits in vain for that winged Being.
“Conversation”
The autumn sky is pink and beautiful but the poet’s sadness swells within him. It recedes and leaves a throbbing of memory. His heart was savaged by a woman’s “tooth and nail” and devoured by beasts. This dirty palace is filled with trash and marauders; he thinks Beauty is a “scourge of souls.”
“Autumn Song”
The light of summer is gone too soon and dismal sounds are heard. Winter with its hate, “chills, and horror” is here, and the poet’s heart will freeze. He shudders when he hears the logs, no better than a gallows. It seems like someone is always nailing a coffin, but he does not know for whom. It was summer, then fall, and now something will be gone.
He loves the light in his beloved’s eyes, but it does not help him today. He begs her to be the autumn and the setting sun to him, but knows that the Tomb waits for him. He kneels before her, lamenting the passing of summer.
“To a Madonna”
The poet would like to make an altar for Madonna in his heart; it would be set aside from his mockeries and earthly joys. He’ll weave her a Crown, and, guided by his jealousy, fashion her a coat like a sentry-box to guard her charms. This gown will stand in for his lust as it covers her “rosy flesh.” He’ll make shoes for her holy feet, and he’ll put the Snake under her heels so she can crush it. He will set his thoughts out like candles for her and stare at her with a fiery gaze. He worships her with all his senses and his soul with “rise in fragrant Smoke.”
At last she is his perfect Mary, love and pagan harshness. He will take the seven deadly sins and, full of “dark, remorseful joy,” plunge them into her panting, crying, and streaming Heart.
“Song of the Afternoon”
Baudelaire’s beloved’s brows make her look not angelic but tempting, and he loves her with ardent, terrible passion. Desert and woods embalm her hair, and censer’s perfume crawls along her skin. She is like a wood nymph and her caress could revive the dead. Her body is amorous. Sometimes she bites while kissing and wounds him while wearing an ever-mocking smile. He places himself under her silk shoes and all his being—his genius, his fate, his soul—is hers.
“Sisina”
The poet asks the reader to imagine Diana bare-breasted running through the forest and Theroigne rousing the “shoeless masses.” They are like a woman named Sisina whom he knows, but the “gentle knight” within that woman’s heart can love and fight.
“Praises for My Francisca”
The poet will sing his beloved’s praises. She is like a little shoot woven into a garland, a captivating woman who absolves his sins. He wants to sip her kisses like he sips Lethe, the river of forgetfulness.
This lady appeared when his sins imperiled him; she redeemed him. He wants to drink of her virtuous pool. She purifies the dirty, smooths the rough, strengthens the weak; she is his tavern when he is hungry and his lantern in the dark. Now, add her potency to man, glow about his loins and guard them—she, his drinking bowl, his Francisca, his heaven’s wine.
“For a Creole Lady”
In a warm and perfumed land the poet met a Creole lady. In this land of indolence she lounged, her skin brown and her neck noble. She is slim and tall, her smile tranquil and her eyes bold. If she came, Madam, to the Loire or Seine, she’d inspire a thousand sonnets.
“Moesta et errabunda”
The poet addresses a woman named Agatha, asking if her heart sometimes takes flight from this “black city” and flies to another sea. The sea comforts them. It offers a lullaby in its grumbles and winds. The poet wants the wagon and the ship to take him away from crime and grief and remorse to the perfumed paradise of lovers. But this sinless paradise full of games, songs, kisses is perhaps far beyond the sea. Can they recall it with their voices and sorrowful melodies?
“The Ghost”
The poet addresses his beloved, saying that in the shadows of night, he will glide to her as an angel with beastly eyes. He will kiss her coolly and caress her like a snake that slithers around a tomb. In the morn she will find no one there. While some want to guide her throughout life with tenderness, he wants to do so with fear.
“Autumn Sonnet”
His beloved’s eyes ask the poet what merit they find in her, but he wants her to be still. His heart keeps secret his hateful passion. They should love gently, he urges. Eros has his bow to loose “crime, madness, horror,” but they are cool and fading, he and his Marguerite.
“Sorrows of the Moon”
The moon “dreams vacantly” like a woman stroking her nipple idly, turning her eyes to visions. Occasionally she will drop a stealthy tear to earth and only the watchful poet who cannot sleep captures the tear and hides it from the sun.
Analysis
In these poems, Baudelaire vacillates wildly between contrasting emotions. In some poems he seems to see the woman (I use “the woman” for lack of a more specific term; though one of the three women discussed in the prior analysis is the likely subject of each poem regarding women, in no case can this be proved definitively) as capable of absolving him of his sins, for example in “The Living Torch,” “Praises for My Francisca,” or is happy to surrender himself to her completely, as in “Song of the Afternoon.” He admires her strength and beauty as well as her ability to love (“Sisina”).
In others, he is tortured by the woman he loves, comparing her saliva to poison (“The Flask”) and finding her mysterious and elusive like the sleek and “seraphic” cat (“The Cat”). In the overwhelmingly dense lines of the carnal and cruel “To a Madonna,” the ecstasies of love and religion blend together, with Baudelaire ending his poem is a frenzy of violent lust: “At last, so you’re my Mary perfectly, / And mixing love with pagan cruelty, / Full of a dark, remorseful joy, I’ll take / The seven deadly sins, and of them male / Seven bright Daggers” and “plant them all within your panting Heart.”
Baudelaire’s symbols, images, and resulting connections are profoundly modern, critic Jonathan Culler writes, because he “brings into verse the banal, the prosaic, or the disgusting.” He “produces dissonant combinations, which can be seen as reflecting the dissociated character of modern experience…Dissonant images may also be seen, though, as models for combining or synthesizing disparate sensations, offering moderns a way of appreciating and thus dealing with inchoate experience.”
Baudelaire also uses Nature to demonstrate the depths of his distresses and sorrows, using images of it both metaphorically and literally. In “The Harmony of Evening” he writes, “the sun is drowning in its dark, congealing blood” to express his feeling that he is similarly drowning in the memory of the woman. In “Misty Sky” he sees her placidity and indifference in the guise of “white, mild, enshrouded days” and a “watery countryside.” In “Autumn Song” winter arrives with its “frigid dark” and, transformed into a metaphor, “comes into my being: wrath, / Hate, chills and horror.” When Nature does not accurately reflect his state of mind, he rails against it or feels a profound sense of despair. In “To One Who Is Too Cheerful” he angrily pulls apart a flower because Spring does not reflect his own anguish, and in “Conversation” the lovely pink autumn sky only makes him melancholy because he reflects on how the woman ravaged his heart.
Baudelaire’s progress toward recognition that he has fallen from a state of spiritual grace is exemplified in his frequent allusions to the passage of time, death, and suicide in these poems, prefiguring the immensity of his ineffable despair in the “Spleen” poems and those at the very end of the section. He imagines himself entombed in “The Flask,” and in “The Irreparable” he personifies the Irreparable and Remorse as his enemies whose “poisoned shafts / Find targets in our hearts.” Remorse “lives, writhes, twists itself” and afflicts the poet’s “anguished soul” as “with cursed tooth / Gnaws souls, weak monuments, / And often, like the termite, he invades / The structures at their base.”
Turning to a few specific poems, we start with “Poison.” Scholar Karen Harrington discusses this poem in terms of Baudelaire’s frequent evocation of fragmentation. Not only does fragmentation occur in the various contradictions and dichotomies that exist in the text (love and hate, good and evil, etc.) but it also occurs in the self. This manifests itself when the “self identifies with others,” when the divided self has a “distancing of the poetic voice from the poem’s movement” and when the split “alienates the self from its own identity.” In “Poison” this occurs when the poet is utterly consumed by the woman’s presence, losing narrative control as he begins to identify fully with the other. The woman guides him to an illusory world, Harrington writes, and ‘though dangerously linked to poison, her eyes are the embodiment of ‘oubli’ and become the focal point through which the poetic self strives to revel in the much-sought-after oblivion.” The poet desires to transgress the boundaries of time and space but unfortunately she is not just enticing but dangerous as well; Baudelaire “seeks and fears both the poison dwelling within the woman’s eyes and the taste of her bitter saliva yet is cognizant of their imminent threat.” This poem reveals Baudelaire trying to lose narrative control as, paradoxically, a technique for “orchestrat[ing] and mak[ing] sense of one’s world.”
In “Invitation to the Voyage,” one of the more famous works in this set of poems, Baudelaire offers perhaps the most “ideal” of the Ideal poems. He invites his lover to dream about a land that is as lovely, as pure, as luxurious and pleasurable as she is herself. While there is a bit of sweet melancholy that infuses the poem, as in the lines “The misty suns / Of shifting skies / To my spirit are as dear / As the evasions / Of your eyes / That shine behind their tears,” overall it is a magical, warm and beautiful vision. Baudelaire’s form is suggestive of the subject, for the lines are short, carefully measured, as in fine and precise brushstrokes of a painting. There is harmony in the language, a gentle rhythm that assists in conjuring the image the poet wants the woman and the reader to see. Harmony also derives from the repetition of the phrase “There, all is order and leisure, / Luxury, beauty, and pleasure;” critic Anne Sienkewicz notes that this “refers simultaneously to each separate scene and to the imaginary whole. With each return of the refrain, the poet tightens the embrace that holds the poem together in an intimate unity.” As usual, Baudelaire also refers to the senses as the gateway to his scene. He writes of the scents of flowers and perfumes, soft susurrus, and bright colors, all done in order to gently entice the woman to enter this interior and imaginary scene.
