The Secret Garden, Baudelaire and The Confluence

Celui dont les pensers, comme des alouettes,

Vers les cieux le matin prennent un libre essor,

- Qui plane sur la vie, et comprend sans effort

Le langage des fleurs et des choses muettes!

(The man whose thoughts, like larks, take to their wings

Each morning, freely speeding through the air,

- Who soars above this life,

interpreter Of flowers' speech, the voice of silent things!)

The last stanza of The Elevation, from Fleur-du-Mal, by Charles Baudelaire, 9 April 1821 - 31 August 1867. The translation is by James McGowan. Today is Baudelaire's 187th birthday.

The image above Baudelaire's stanza is a camfone photo, detailed in MSPaint, taken by a Polaroid of a 5 x 6 foot 1992 canvas originally called 'The Secret Garden', which was painted over later that year with another painting called 'The Confluence', below. It hangs in France, and was first posted here.