Correspondences

by

Charles Baudelaire



Nature is a temple in which living pillars

Sometimes give voice to words that are confused;

Man passes there through jungless of symbols

Which gaze at him with understanding eyes.


Like prolonged echoes commingling in the distance

In a deep, tenebrous unity,

Vast as the dark of night and as the light of day,

Perfumes, sounds, and colors correspond.


There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children,

Sweet as oboes, green as meadows

— And others are corrupt, and rich, and triumphant,


With power to expand into infinity,

Like amber and incense, musk, and benzoin,

That sing of the ecstasy of the soul and senses.



Go Back