Poetry Monday!: "Harmonie du soir" by Charles Baudelaire (French)

 

Note: here's a site with a number of English translations of this poem. Here's a link to the rest of my playlist.

Comments

[Leo Marvin]

Poetry isn't my thing, and poetry in a language I can barely use to get to a bathroom even less so. But the idea of it is such a sweet, civilized distraction from everything that preoccupies us these days, it makes me sad for it to get so little attention, or at least feedback, from the readership. So this is me, an admitted poetry non-reader, applauding you for doing it, and encouraging you not to stop.

[adopte]

bravo bonne diction .Quelle est votre opinion au sujet de Baudelaire
et Verlaine ensemble re enterrés au Pantheon ?

[Entelechy]

Does this paean sound familiar? I wonder if has been translated into French ?

Irish poet George Croly wrote 'Nelson's Pillar' on the beach the monument overlooks at Great Yarmouth, in 1817 :

There is a gloomy splendour in the Sun,
That levels his last beam along the shore;
The clouds are gathering o'er the Ocean, dun,
And stain'd with crimson streaks, like new-shed gore
On some broad field of battle; and the roar
Of wave and wind comes like the battle's sound.
From the Sea's verge a Column seems to soar,
A shaft of silver, on whose summit, wound
With golden beams, sits Britain's Image thron'd and crown'd.

And now the Sun sinks deeper, and the clouds,
In folds of purple fire, still heavier lour;
'Till sudden Night the shore and Ocean shrouds;
But thro' the tempest gleams that stately tow'r,
A giant height, on which the Sun-beams show'r
Their undiminish'd glories. NELSON's name
Is on the pillar. — Thus the stormy hour,
The clouds of battle, shew'd his spirit's flame,
Brighter and broader. — Thus shall blaze the Hero's fame.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

A poem:

Choose reason. Every time.

Choose reason.
Especially over sacred ignorance and dogmatic intolerance.

Choose reason. Most especially if you are older than 12 or so.
By that time, childhood indoctrination has faded
as excuse for gullibility, bigotry, ignorance, and backwardness.
By adulthood -- even ostensible adulthood -- it is no excuse
Not even in the most desolate backwater one can find

Choose reason. Every time.
And education, tolerance, science, and progress
And freedom, inclusiveness, and modernity
Avoid superstition, bigotry, ignorance, insularity, dogma,
backwardness, and pining for good old days that never existed.
Not 50 years ago. Not 2,000 years ago.

Choose reason. Every time.
Be an adult.
Or, at least, try
Thank you