Explore "The Ideal" by Charles Pierre Baudelaire on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Not all the beauties in old prints vignetted, / The worthless products of an outworn age, / With slippered feet and fingers castanetted, / The thirst of hearts like this heart can assuage.
To Gavarni, the poet of chloroses, / I leave his troupes of beauties sick and wan; / I cannot find among these pale, pale roses, / The red ideal mine eyes would gaze upon.
Lady Macbeth, the lovely star of crime, / The Greek poet's dream born in a northern clime -- / Ah, she could quench my dark heart's deep desiring;
Or Michelangelo's dark daughter Night, / In a strange posture dreamily admiring / Her beauty fashioned for a giant's delight!