The Mind

Evening Harmony

by Charles Baudelaire 1821–1867

Translated by Cyril Scott (1909) · From Les Fleurs du Mal (1857)

The Mind

The hour approacheth, when, as their stems incline,
The flowers evaporate like an incense urn,
And sounds and scents in the vesper breezes turn;
A melancholy waltz--and a drowsiness divine.

The flowers evaporate like an incense urn,
The viol vibrates like the wailing of souls that repine.
A melancholy waltz--and a drowsiness divine,
The skies like a mosque are beautiful and stern.

The viol vibrates like the wailing of souls that repine;
Sweet souls that shrink from chaos vast and etern,
The skies like a mosque are beautiful and stern,
The sunset drowns within its blood-red brine.

Sweet souls that shrink from chaos vast and etern,
Essay the wreaths of their faded Past to entwine,
The sunset drowns within its blood-red brine,
Thy thought within me glows like an incense urn.

MLA

Baudelaire, Charles. “Evening Harmony.” Translated by Cyril Scott. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/baudelaire/24/.

Chicago

Baudelaire, Charles. “Evening Harmony.” Translated by Cyril Scott. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/baudelaire/24/.

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