Translation: Charles Baudelaire's Beauty

Maxfield Parrish, Contentment, 1927

I am fair, oh mortals! like a stoney dream,

And my breast, where each has been bruised shard by shard, 

Is made to inspire a love in the bard

Eternal and mute like matter serene.

I reign in the sky like a quizzical sphinx

Marrying a snow heart with the swan’s white;

I loath movement in the lines however slight,

Never in tears or laughter do I sink.

Poets, in the face of my grandiose airs,

which I seem to borrow from the proudest marvels

Will consume their days in austere study snares;

For I have, to fascinate these sheepish lovers, 

Pure mirrors, which render all more fair and tender:

My eyes, my large eyes of eternal splendor.