# Translations from Charles Baudelaire, with a few original poems/Lesbos

LESBOS.
* Mother of Latin sports and Greek delights.
* Where kisses languishing or pleasureful,
* Warm as the suns, as the water-melons cool,
* Adorn the glorious days and sleepless nights.
* Mother of Latin sports and Greek delights.
* Lesbos, where kisses are as waterfalls
* That fearless into gulfs unfathom'd leap,
* Now run with sobs, now slip with gentle brawls,
* Stormy and secret, manifold and deep;
* Lesbos, where kisses are as waterfalls!
* ​Lesbos, where Phryne Phryne to her draws,
* Where ne'er a sigh did echoless expire.
* As Paphos' equal thee the stars admire.
* Nor Venus envies Sappho without cause!
* Lesbos, where Phryne Phryne to her draws,
* Lesbos, the land of warm and langorous nights.
* Where by their mirrors seeking sterile good.
* The girls with hollow eyes, in soft delights.
* Caress the ripe fruits of their womanhood,
* Lesbos, the land of warm and langorous nights.
* Leave, leave old Plato's austere eye to frown;
* Pardon is thine for kisses' sweet excess.
* Queen of the land of amiable renown.
* And for exhaustless subtleties of bliss.
* Leave, leave old Plato's austere eye to frown.
* Pardon is thine for the eternal pain
* That on the ambitious hearts for ever lies.
* Whom far from us the radiant smile could gain,
* Seen dimly on the verge of other skies;
* Pardon is thine for the eternal pain!
* ​Which of the gods will dare thy judge to be.
* And to condemn thy brow with labour pale.
* Not having balanced in his golden scale
* The flood of tears thy brooks pour'd in the sea?
* Which of the gods will dare thy judge to be?
* What boot the laws of just and of unjust?
* Great-hearted virgins, honour of the isles,
* Lo, your religion also is august,
* And love at hell and heaven together smiles!
* What boot the laws of just and of unjust?
* For Lesbos chose me out from all my peers.
* To sing the secret of her maids in flower.
* Opening the mystery dark from childhood's hour
* Of frantic laughters, mix'd with sombre tears;
* For Lesbos chose me out from all my peers.
* And since I from Leucate's top survey,
* Like a sentinel with piercing eye and true.
* Watching for brig and frigate night and day.
* Whose distant outlines quiver in the blue.
* And since I from Leucate's top survey.
* ​To learn if kind and merciful the sea.
* And midst the sobs that make the rock resound,
* Brings back some eve to pardoning Lesbos, free
* The worshipped corpse of Sappho, who made her bound
* To learn if kind and merciful the sea!
* Of her the man-like lover-poetess,
* In her sad pallor more than Venus fair!
* The azure eye yields to that black eye, where
* The cloudy circle tells of the distress
* Of her the man-like lover-poetess!
* Fairer than Venus risen on the world.
* Pouring the treasures of her aspect mild,
* The radiance of her fdr white youth unfurl'd
* On Ocean old enchanted with his child;
* Fairer than Venus risen on the world.
* Of Sappho, who, blaspheming, died that day
* When trampling on the rite and sacred creed.
* She made her body fair the supreme prey
* Of one whose pride punish'd the impious deed
* Of Sappho who, blaspheming, died that day.
* ​And since that time it is that Lesbos moans,
* And, spite the homage which the whole world pays,
* Is drunk each night with cries of pain and groans,
* Her desert shores unto the heavens do raise,
* And since that time it is that Lesbos moans !