Explore "A Memorial (F. T.)" by Charles Pierre Baudelaire on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The cord broke, and the tent / Slipped, and the silken roof / Lay prone beneath the viewless hoof / Of the deliberate firmament. / Yet cared we not; how should we care? / Knowing that labourless now he breathes / A golden paradisal air / Where with more certain craft he wreathes / Bright braids of words more wise and fair / Than ever his earthly fabrics were, / That his unwavering eyes made fresh, / Purged and regarbed in fadeless flesh, / What he then darkly guessed behold, / And watch with an abiding joy / The eternal mysteries unfold / Which do his now transfigured songs evermore employ.
Brother, yet great thy power; / Thou stood'st as on a tower / Small 'neath the stars yet high above the fields; / In thy alembic song / Imagination strong / Distilled what essences the quest to mortals yields. / This thy reward well-won, / For every morning's sun / Found thy heart's firm allegiance still unshaken; / No temporal ache or smart / Drave Beauty from thy heart, / And by thy mighty mistress never wast forsaken.