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The Albatross by Charles Baudelaire March 5, 2007

Posted by atharkhan in : Personal , trackback

Found a translation of “L’Albatros,” a beautiful poem by Charles Baudelaire.

The Albatross

Sometimes, to entertain themselves, the men of the crew
Lure upon deck an unlucky albatross, one of those vast
Birds of the sea that follow unwearied the voyage through,
Flying in slow and elegant circles above the mast.

No sooner have they disentangled him from their nets
Than this aerial colossus, shorn of his pride,
Goes hobbling pitiably across the planks and lets
His great wings hang like heavy, useless oars at his side.

How droll is the poor floundering creature, how limp and weak –
He, but a moment past so lordly, flying in state!
They tease him: One of them tries to stick a pipe in his beak;
Another mimics with laughter his odd lurching gait.

The Poet is like that wild inheritor of the cloud,
A rider of storms, above the range of arrows and slings;
Exiled on earth, at bay amid the jeering crowd,
He cannot walk for his unmanageable wings.

— George Dillon, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

Comments»

1. Aun - March 6, 2007

The Blog looks great. By the way, you might want to talk to hostmonster and upgrade your version of WP to 2.1.2 as 2.1.1 has a major security hole, unless they got 2.1.1 from the Wordpress SVN.

2. atharkhan - March 8, 2007

Yeah man. Thanks for the theme.