Charles Baudelaire
Invitation to the Voyage
My sisterchild, my dear!
Imagine going there
Gently to live together, just us two,
To love and think not why
To love and live and die
Together in the land that is like you.
The soaking suns that rise
Through those cloud-raveled skies
Will move me with the selfsame mystery
And witchery that lie
Within each traitor eye
That shines out through your tears to look at me.

There, there is but beauty, measure,
Luxury, repose and pleasure

A furniture that bears
The polishing of years
Will be the decoration of our chamber,
The very rarest blooms
Commingling their perfumes
With vague and sundry redolence of amber.
Those ceilings richly wrought,
And mirrors deep as thought,
And walls with oriental splendor hung
They all would speak apart
To nothing but the heart
In nothing but its tender mother tongue.
There, there is but beauty, measure,
Luxury, repose and pleasure

See vessels in the sweep
Of those canals, asleep,
Whose way it is to wander from their berth.
See how, to answer some
Small wish of yours, they come
Our way through all the waters of this earth.
At close of day the sun
Robes hayfields one by one,
Then the canals, and soon the town outright,
In hyacinth and gold;
The world that we behold
Subsides to slumber in a warm low light.

There, there is but beauty, measure,
Luxury, repose and pleasure