The Best Gift

To Lesley for the honour of Charles Baudelaire

À une Dame créole
Au pays parfumé que le soleil caresse,
J'ai connu, sous un dais d'arbres tout empourprés
Et de palmiers d'où pleut sur les yeux la paresse,
Une dame créole aux charmes ignorés.
Son teint est pâle et chaud; la brune enchanteresse
A dans le cou des airs noblement maniérés;
Grande et svelte en marchant comme une chasseresse,
Son sourire est tranquille et ses yeux assurés.
Si vous alliez, Madame, au vrai pays de gloire,
Sur les bords de la Seine ou de la verte Loire,
Belle digne d'orner les antiques manoirs,
Vous feriez, à l'abri des ombreuses retraites
Germer mille sonnets dans le coeur des poètes,
Que vos grands yeux rendraient plus soumis que vos noirs.
— Charles Baudelaire

To a Colonial Lady
In scented countries by the sun caressed
I've known, beneath a tent of purple boughs,
And palmtrees shedding slumber as they drowse,
A creole lady with a charm unguessed.
She's pale, and warm, and duskily beguiling;
Nobility is moulded in her neck;
Slender and tall she holds herself in check,
An huntress born, sure-eyed, and quiet-smiling.
Should you go, Madam, to the land of glory
Along the Seine or Loire, where you would merit
To ornament some mansion famed in story,
Your eyes would bum in those deep-shaded parts,
And breed a thousand rhymes in poets' hearts,
Tamed like the negro slaves that you inherit.
— Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

I got a strong feeling that the lady in the poem is the one I met in this company,who looks really charming, calm and fabulous, with the most beautiful smile in the world, like the Sunflowers, sparkling under the eyes-hurting sunlights.

Just learnt Charles Baudelaire from the book lent by Lesley and love his stuffs very much! I'm planning to spend the following few weeks to read through all of his poems, try to melt myself into his heaven, where devil is a form of art.

It's really a treasure for me, now lives full of his smell and I'm going to penetrate myself into the deepest part of my inner side to pull out the virus which make me losing my desire in all sorts of things.

I'm a bit confused these years, always taste the bitterness with the sudden rains pouring from my eyes. Nevertheless,I will quickly dry up the lake with a deeper sorrow and grievances, tear my flesh into numerous tidy pieces.

To feed the monster in my body.

My heart got a huge hole and I'm not sure if there's somethings inside the hole to plug out all my happiness and feelings in these days.

Sooner or later, I will lose all my feelings and finally, can get the pleasure and calmness that I crave for million years.