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Charles Baudelaire's
Fleurs du mal / Flowers of Evil

Two editions of Fleurs du mal were

published in Baudelaire's lifetime one in
1857 and an expanded edition in 1861.
"Scraps" and censored poems were
collected in Les paves in 1866. After
Baudelaire died the following year, a
"definitive" edition appeared in 1868.

1857 Fleurs du mal

First edition with 100 poems

1861 Fleurs du mal

Second edition missing censored poems
but including new ones

1866 Les paves

Twenty-three "scraps" including the
poems censored from the first edition

1868 Fleurs du mal

Definitive edition published after
Baudelaire's death

La Prire d'un paen

Ah! ne ralentis pas tes flammes;
Rchauffe mon coeur engourdi,
Volupt, torture des mes!
Diva! Supplicem exaud!
Desse dans l'air rpandue,
Flamme dans notre souterrain!
Exauce une me morfondue,
Qui te consacre un chant d'airain.
Volupt, sois toujours ma reine!
Prends le masque d'une sirne
Faite de chair et de velours,
Ou verse-moi tes sommeils lourds
Dans le vin informe et mystique,
Volupt, fantme lastique!
Charles Baudelaire

All Poems (Alphabetical)

Every poem from each edition

Audio
Readings of Baudelaire mostly in French

Fleursdumal.org is
a labor of love
produced and
maintained by
Supervert.

External Links
Horizon Noir
French resource

A Pagan's Prayer
Ah! do not dampen your ardor;
Warm my numb heart again,
Pleasure, torture of souls!
Goddess! hear me, I beseech you!
Goddess who permeates the air,
Flame in our underground cavern!
Grant the prayer of a soul bored utterly,
Who offers you a brazen hymn.
Pleasure, be my queen forever!
Put on a siren's mask
Fashioned of flesh and of velvet
Or pour on me your heavy sleep,
In wine, formless and mystical,
O Pleasure, elastic phantom!
William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

Baudelaire Microhistory
The life of Baudelaire day by day

W.T. Bandy Center for

Baudelaire studies
Extensive resource

Pagan Prayer
Don't stint the fires with which you flare.
Warm up my dull heart to delight,
O Pleasure, torture of the sprite,

31 Translations of Spleen
by Nicholas Moore

Le Balcon
Translated into English by 20 different
translators

Mag4.net
Excellent Arthur Rimbaud site, in French

O Goddess, hear my fervent prayer!

Goddess, who through the ether pass,
Flame in this subterranean hole!
Raise up a chilled and stricken soul
Who lifts to you his peal of brass.
O Pleasure, always be my queen!
In flesh and velvet to be seen,
Mask your beauty like a siren:
Or else my soul with sleep environ
Drained from the formless mystic wine,
Elastic phantom! which is thine.
Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

Pagan's Prayer
Ah! keep your ardors ever near me,
Warm my numb heart, preserve it whole,
O Pleasure, torture of the soul!
Goddess, I do beseech thee: Hear me!
Goddess who permeates the dim
Caverns of our obscurity,
Hark to a heart gnawed by ennui
Which offers thee this a brazen hymn.
Joy, be my queen always, I ask,
Pleasure, put on a siren's mask
Fashioned of velvet and of flesh,
Or pour your sleep, heavy and fresh,
In wine, your mystic formless treasure,
Elastic phantom, holy Pleasure!
Jacques LeClercq, Flowers of Evil (Mt Vernon, NY: Peter Pauper Press, 1958)

The Pagan's Prayer

Ah, damp not yet the living coals!
Heat once again my heart in thee!
Voluptuousness, thou scourge of souls,
Goddess, incline thine ear to me!
Spirit abroad in the bright air,
Flame in our dark and secret ways,
Freezing I bring thee grant my prayer!
A song of brass to bruit thy praise!
Siren, be still my sovereign; keep
Thy kingdom; wear thy mask, whose mesh
Is half of velvet, half of flesh!
Or pour me out thy heavy sleep,
In mystic and amorphous wine:
Phantom elastic and divine.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)
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