The Mind

Bertha's Eyes

by Charles Baudelaire 1821–1867

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

The Mind

The loveliest eyes you can scorn with your wondrous glow:
O! beautiful childish eyes there abounds in your light,
A something unspeakably tender and good as the night:
O! eyes! over me your enchanting darkness let flow.

Large eyes of my child! O Arcana profoundly adored!
Ye resemble so closely those caves in the magical creek;
Where within the deep slumbering shade of some petrified peak,
There shines, undiscovered, the gems of a dazzling hoard.

My child has got eyes so profound and so dark and so vast,
Like thee! oh unending Night, and thy mystical shine:
Their flames are those thoughts that with Love and with Faith combine,
And sparkle deep down in the depths so alluring or chaste.

MLA

Baudelaire, Charles. “Bertha's Eyes.” Translated by Cyril Scott. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/baudelaire/44/.

Chicago

Baudelaire, Charles. “Bertha's Eyes.” Translated by Cyril Scott. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/baudelaire/44/.

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