La Muse Malade-sharl Bodler

La Muse malade Ma pauvre muse, hélas! qu'as-tu donc ce matin?Tes yeux creux sont peuplés de visions nocturnes,Et je vois tour à tour réfléchis sur ton teintLa folie et l'horreur, froides et taciturnes. Le succube verdâtre et le rose lutin T'ont-ils versé la peur et l'amour de leurs urnes?Le cauchemar, d'un poing despotique et mutinT'a-t-il noyée au fond d'un fabuleux Minturnes? Je voudrais qu'exhalant l'odeur de la santéTon sein de pensers forts fût toujours fréquenté,Et que ton sang chrétien coulât à flots rythmiques, Comme les sons nombreux des syllabes antiques,Où règnent tour à tour le père des chansons,Phoebus, et le grand Pan, le seigneur des moissons. — Charles Baudelaire The Sick Muse My poor Muse, alas! what ails you today? Your hollow eyes are full of nocturnal visions; I see in turn reflected on your face Horror and madness, cold and taciturn. Have the green succubus, the rosy elf,Poured out for you love and fear from their urns?Has the hand of Nightmare, cruel and despotic,Plunged you to the bottom of some weird Minturnae? I would that your bosom, fragrant with health,Were constantly the dwelling place of noble thoughts,And that your Christian blood would flow in rhythmic waves Like the measured sounds of ancient verse, Over which reign in turn the father of all songs, Phoebus, and the great Pan, lord of harvest. — William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954) The Sick Muse Alas, poor Muse, what ails you so today? Your hollow eyes with midnight visions burn, And turn about, in your complexion play Madness and horror, cold and taciturn. Green succubus and rosy imp — have they Poured you both fear and love into one glass? Or with his tyrant fist the nightmare, say, Submerged you in some fabulous morass? I wish that, breathing health, your breast might nourishEver robuster thoughts therein to flourish:And that your Christian blood, in rhythmic flow, With those old polysyllables would chime, Where, turn about, reigned Phoebus, sire of rhyme, And Pan, the lord of harvests long ago. — Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952) The Sick Muse What's the matter with you today, Muse?Are you going to tell me about last night's visions,Heads on spikes, natives dancing a frenzied juba,And all kinds of other stuff?

Oh you pink-lipped succubus!You just don't want me to shoot into you.You say you drowned, at Actium or Lepanto.Again? What a nightmare. I only want you to heave healthBe thinking of strongly urged Christian ThingsAnd you tied to a bed So, count it out andMoan your dirge —I'm climbing on. — Will Schmitz La Muse malade poor Muse, alas! what ails thee now? for thygreat hollow eyes with sights nocturnal burn, and in they changing pallor I descrymadness and frozen horror, turn by turn. did rosy sprites or pale green succubipour love or panic from their dreamfilled urn?did the mad fist of despot nightmare tryto drown thee where the fiends of hell sojourn? I would that thou wert always filled with healthand manly thoughts undaunted; that a wealthof Christian blood were thine, which always flowed in calm broad rhythms like a Grecian ode,now echoing forth Apollo's golden strain,and now great Pan, the lord of ripening grain. — Lewis Piaget Shanks, Flowers of Evil (New York: Ives Washburn, 1931