L'invitation au voyage [English translation]

How sweet, my own,

Could we live alone

Over beyond the sea!

To love and to die

Indolently

In the land that's akin to thee!

Where the suns which rise

In the watery skies

Weave soft spells over my sight,

As thy false eyes do

When they flicker through

Their tears with a dim, strange light.

There all is beauty and symmetry,

Pleasure and calm and luxury.

Years that have gone

Have polished and shone

The things that would fill our room;

The flowers most rare

Which scent the air

In the richly-ceiling'd gloom,

And the mirrors profound,

And the walls around

With Orient splendour hung,

To the soul would speak

Of things she doth seek

In her gentle native tongue.

There all is beauty and symmetry,

Pleasure and calm and luxury.

The canals are deep

Where the strange ships sleep

Far from the land of their birth;

To quench the fire

Of thy least desire

They have come from the ends of the earth.

The sunsets drown

Peaceful town

And meadow, and stagnant stream

In bistre and gold,

And the world enfold

In a warm and luminous dream.

There all is beauty and symmetry,

Pleasure and calm and luxury.

• Artist:Charles Baudelaire
• Album:Les fleurs du mal (1861 - 2ème édition) - 053 - Spleen et idéal - LIII