Read "To a Madonna" by Charles Pierre Baudelaire online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
(_An Ex-Voto in the Spanish taste_.)
Madonna, mistress. I would build for thee / An altar deep in the sad soul of me; / And in the darkest corner of my heart, / From mortal hopes and mocking eyes apart, / Carve of enamelled blue and gold a shrine / For thee to stand erect in, Image divine! / And with a mighty Crown thou shalt be crowned / Wrought of the gold of my smooth Verse, set round / With starry crystal rhymes; and I will make, / O mortal maid, a Mantle for thy sake, / And weave it of my jealousy, a gown / Heavy, barbaric, stiff, and weighted down / With my distrust, and broider round the hem / Not pearls, but all my tears in place of them. / And then thy wavering, trembling robe shall be / All the desires that rise and fall in me / From mountain-peaks to valleys of repose, / Kissing thy lovely body's white and rose. / For thy humiliated feet divine, / Of my Respect I'll make thee Slippers fine / Which, prisoning them within a gentle fold,
Shall keep their imprint like a faithful mould. / And if my art, unwearying and discreet, / Can make no Moon of Silver for thy feet / To have for Footstool, then thy heel shall rest / Upon the snake that gnaws within my breast, / Victorious Queen of whom our hope is born! / And thou shalt trample down and make a scorn / Of the vile reptile swollen up with hate. / And thou shalt see my thoughts, all consecrate, / Like candles set before thy flower-strewn shrine, / O Queen of Virgins, and the taper-shine / Shall glimmer star-like in the vault of blue, / With eyes of flame for ever watching you. / While all the love and worship in my sense / Will be sweet smoke of myrrh and frankincense. / Ceaselessly up to thee, white peak of snow, / My stormy spirit will in vapours go!
And last, to make thy drama all complete, / That love and cruelty may mix and meet, / I, thy remorseful torturer, will take / All the Seven Deadly Sins, and from them make / In darkest joy, Seven Knives, cruel-edged and keen, / And like a juggler choosing, O my Queen, / That spot profound whence love and mercy start, / I'll plunge them all within thy panting heart!