en voyage poem

Eternal Voyage

Written by Susan Noyes Anderson on July 1, 2009 . Posted in Death and Grief Poems , Spiritual Poems

©1993 Susan Noyes Anderson, Standard (poem only)

A ship fades from our view; we wave good-bye. Her sails grow small, then vanish from the sky. And sorrowing, we bow our heads, and then we mourn that sight we long to see again.

But others wait on some shore far away and watch the lonely clouds, day after day; till finally, they see a shimmering light, reflection of that sail gone from our sight.

And as that ship sails in, their joy does grow, just as ours did when first we saw her glow, reflected by the sun against the sky, its beauty speaking peace to every eye.

For this is truth, that though gone from our view, the ship sails on, her glory seen anew; just as one day our own ships will depart, for so the voyage goes, from start to start.

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The Writer's Quotes

A blog where writers can come to find that one quote they need. writers of all genres are invited to peruse the quotes already posted and to post their own favorite quotes., poem: en voyage by carlyle emery.

THERE’S a ship sailing on to a harbor,

To a haven of comfort and rest;

It’s a ship of God’s fashion and making,

And its voyage by Him will be blest.

It departed with silence and beauty,

With the Master, Himself, in command;

As with dignity truly majestic

It sailed out of sight of all land.

There will always be clear skies above it;

There will always be calmness below

There will never be storms to harass it,

For the Master is on it, you know,

And His wisdom will carry it safely

To the port of His infinite peace,

Where the light of His love will protect it

With a blessing that never will cease.

You have watched it sail onward and outward,

With a tear of regret in your eye,

For a loved one was sailing upon it,

And there’s grief when you’re saying goodbye.

But your tears would be tears of rejoicing.

And your heart would be happy and free,

If you could look for only a moment

On that ship that is sailing to sea.

For the one you have loved is at leisure,

With no worry or trouble or care;

There’s contentment beyond understanding,

In the way God’s passengers fare.

And you’d know from your own observation

That the sailing was joyful–not grim,

For it means a new life and new living,

And a sweet, closer contact with Him.

Oh, the solace there is in the knowledge,

Life is life and it always will be,

And it’s simply a change of direction

When we sail on His ship out to sea.

And the tears that we shed for our loved ones

Are in truth shed for us left behind,

For it hurts to give up to the Master,

Tho we know He is gentle and kind.

So believe in His great and good wisdom,

Trust in Him, as you patiently wait;

On His ship God is ever the pilot,

And the one you have loved is the mate.

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2 thoughts on “ poem: en voyage by carlyle emery ”.

where can I buy the sympathy card with the poem En Voyage by Carlyle Emery it has an old Viking type ship on the front of the card. I got on several years ago at my Mother’s funeral.

I would like to buy maybe 10-12 cards.

Thank you for your help.

Sincerely Cathy Williams [email protected] Please meant card in subject so I will not delete.

My own mother got a copy of the card. She then had a printer make her copies of the card. She has a whole box full. I took one and typed it up for the blog. If you want, you can take the card you got at your mothers funeral and see about having some made up/printed for your own use. My condolences to your family. 🙂

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Charles Baudelaire's Fleurs du mal / Flowers of Evil

Bohémiens en voyage

La tribu prophétique aux prunelles ardentes Hier s'est mise en route, emportant ses petits Sur son dos, ou livrant à leurs fiers appétits Le trésor toujours prêt des mamelles pendantes.

Les hommes vont à pied sous leurs armes luisantes Le long des chariots où les leurs sont blottis, Promenant sur le ciel des yeux appesantis Par le morne regret des chimères absentes.

Du fond de son réduit sablonneux, le grillon, Les regardant passer, redouble sa chanson; Cybèle, qui les aime, augmente ses verdures,

Fait couler le rocher et fleurir le désert Devant ces voyageurs, pour lesquels est ouvert L'empire familier des ténèbres futures.

— Charles Baudelaire

Gypsies Traveling

The prophetical tribe, that ardent eyed people, Set out last night, carrying their children On their backs, or yielding to those fierce appetites The ever ready treasure of pendulous breasts.

The men travel on foot with their gleaming weapons Alongside the wagons where their kin are huddled, Surveying the heavens with eyes rendered heavy By a mournful regret for vanished illusions.

The cricket from the depths of his sandy retreat Watches them as they pass, and louder grows his song; Cybele, who loves them, increases her verdure,

Makes the desert blossom, water spurt from the rock Before these travelers for whom is opened wide The familiar domain of the future's darkness.

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

Gipsies on the Road

The tribe of seers, last night, began its march With burning eyes, and shouldering its young To whose ferocious appetites it swung The wealth of hanging breasts that nought can parch.

The men, their weapons glinting in the rays, Walk by the convoy where their folks are carted, Sweeping the far-off skylines with a gaze Regretful of Chimeras long-departed.

Out of his hole the cricket sees them pass And sings the louder. Greener grows the grass Because Cybele loves them, and has made

The barren rock to gush, the sands to flower, To greet these travellers, before whose power Familiar futures open realms of shade.

— Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

The Gypsies

They set out yesterday, the tribe of ragged seers With burning eyes — bearing their little ones in nests Upon their backs, or giving them, to stop their tears, The teats of inexhaustible and swarthy breasts.

The men walk shouldering their rifles silently Beside the hooded wagons with bright tatters hung, And peer into the sky, as if they hoped to see Some old mirage that beckoned them when they were young.

No matter where they journey through the meager land, The cricket will sing louder from his lair of sand, And Cybele, who loves them, will smile where they advance:

The desert will be fruitful, the arid rock will flow Before the footsteps of these wayfarers, who go Eternally into the lightless realm of chance.

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

Gypsies Travelling

The tribe prophetic with the eyes of fire Went forth last night; their little ones at rest Each on his mother's back, with his desire Set on the ready treasure of her breast.

Laden with shining arms the men-folk tread By the long wagons where their goods lie hidden; They watch the heaven with eyes grown weariëd Of hopeless dreams that come to them unbidden.

The grasshopper, from out his sandy screen, Watching them pass redoubles his shrill song; Dian, who loves them, makes the grass more green,

And makes the rock run water for this throng Of ever-wandering ones Whose calm eyes see Familiar realms of darkness yet to be.

— F.P. Sturm, from Baudelaire: His Prose and Poetry , edited by Thomas Robert Smith (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1919)

Two editions of Fleurs du mal were published in Baudelaire's lifetime — one in 1857 and an expanded edition in 1861. "Scraps" and censored poems were collected in Les Épaves in 1866. After Baudelaire died the following year, a "definitive" edition appeared in 1868.

• 1857 Fleurs du mal First edition with 100 poems
• 1861 Fleurs du mal Second edition missing censored poems but including new ones
• 1866 Les Épaves Twenty-three "scraps" including the poems censored from the first edition
• 1868 Fleurs du mal Comprehensive edition published after Baudelaire's death
• All Poems (Alphabetical) Every poem from each edition
• Audio Readings of Baudelaire mostly in French
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PoetryVerse

Charles Baudelaire

Invitation to the voyage.

My child, my sister, Think of the rapture Of living together there! Of loving at will, Of loving till death, In the land that is like you! The misty sunlight Of those cloudy skies Has for my spirit the charms, So mysterious, Of your treacherous eyes, Shining brightly through their tears. There all is order and beauty, Luxury, peace, and pleasure. Gleaming furniture, Polished by the years, Will ornament our bedroom; The rarest flowers Mingling their fragrance With the faint scent of amber, The ornate ceilings, The limpid mirrors, The oriental splendor, All would whisper there Secretly to the soul In its soft, native language. There all is order and beauty, Luxury, peace, and pleasure. See on the canals Those vessels sleeping. Their mood is adventurous; It's to satisfy Your slightest desire That they come from the ends of the earth. — The setting suns Adorn the fields, The canals, the whole city, With hyacinth and gold; The world falls asleep In a warm glow of light. There all is order and beauty, Luxury, peace, and pleasure. Translated by - William Aggeler

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Translating Baudelaire: L’Invitation au Voyage

Editor’s note: This is the sixth installment in the series “Poetry in a Time of Dislocation.” Fine art photographer Fern Nesson asserts that the place for art is critical during this time of pandemic, and she has immersed herself in the French poets, translating important works and sharing them as photo essays. This week, in a return to Charles Baudelaire, Fern explains her method of translation.

(Click here for previous installments:  Charles Baudelaire,   Guillaume Apollinaire,   Paul Valéry , Christine de Pizan , and Paul Verlaine .)

Baudelaire’s most famous poem is “L’Invitation au Voyage.” Translating this poem is treacherous since it’s been translated so many times by others (often exceedingly badly) but it gives me the opportunity to explain a bit about my approach to translation.

Photo: Fern Nesson

The French speakers among you will have noticed that I do not translate word for word nor to do I attempt to rhyme. In my view, translators who do that often sacrifice meaning, rhythm and poetry in their effort to reproduce the words exactly.

Instead, I practice what scholars of translation have called “mimesis.” Mimesis is an effort to get inside the poet’s head and heart, to come to understand his ideas, his intentions and the way he uses language. Then, having done that, a mimetic translator becomes the poet (metaphorically) and rewrites the poem in his own language. Done well, the poem will retain its rhythm, its poetic imagery and its meaning.   (Just an aside: Baudelaire himself translated Edgar Allan Poe into French and he practiced mimesis in doing so.)

In my translation of “L’Invitation Au Voyage,” I tried my best to communicate Baudelaire’s thoughts and style but, in one instance, I gave up. The famous refrain — “Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté, luxe, calme et volupté — defeated me. I could find no English words that could reproduce Baudelaire’s economy of expression and his absolutely magical way of describing paradise. So I left the refrain untranslated. The French words are close enough to English to give you a sense of their meaning and so I left them as written. Please forgive me and enjoy this extraordinary poem!

L’Invitation Au Voyage from Les Fleurs du Mal (1851)

Mon enfant, ma soeur, Songe à la douceur D’aller là-bas vivre ensemble! Aimer à loisir, Aimer et mourir Au pays qui te ressemble! Les soleils mouillés De ces ciels brouillés Pour mon esprit ont les charmes Si mystérieux De tes traîtres yeux, Brillant à travers leurs larmes.

Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,

Luxe, calme et volupté.

Des meubles luisants, Polis par les ans, Décoreraient notre chambre; Les plus rares fleurs Mêlant leurs odeurs Aux vagues senteurs de l’ambre, Les riches plafonds, Les miroirs profonds, La splendeur orientale, Tout y parlerait À l’âme en secret Sa douce langue natale.

Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté, Luxe, calme et volupté.

Vois sur ces canaux Dormir ces vaisseaux Dont l’humeur est vagabonde; C’est pour assouvir Ton moindre désir Qu’ils viennent du bout du monde. — Les soleils couchants Revêtent les champs, Les canaux, la ville entière, D’hyacinthe et d’or; Le monde s’endort Dans une chaude lumière.

My translation

My child, my sister, my love, Imagine the joy of running away together, Free to love, To love and to die in a land that reminds me of you. A land where moist suns glow in misty skies,

A land whose mysterious charms are the same for me as your flashing eyes,

brilliant through their tears.

Gleaming woods burnished by the years adorn our chambers. the rarest of flowers mix their scents with hints of amber.

Coffered ceilings, Gilded mirrors, Carpets of oriental splendor — all whisper to us

in the sweet native language of the soul.

Picture a fleet of ships floating sleepily in the harbor awaiting your command. They stand ready to sail to the ends of the earth

to satisfy your least desire, your every whim.

The setting sun bathes the fields, the canals, the whole scene, in hyacinth and gold. All the world slumbers in its warm light.

Lead photo credit : Photo: Fern Nesson

More in Charles Baudelaire , French poetry

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Bohémiens En Voyage (Gypsies On The Road)

By charles baudelaire.

La tribu prophétique aux prunelles ardentes Hier s'est mise en route, emportant ses petits Sur son dos, ou livrant à leurs fiers appétits Le trésor toujours prêt des mamelles pendantes. Les hommes vont à pied sous leurs armes luisantes Le long des chariots où les leurs sont blottis, Promenant sur le ciel des yeux appesantis Par le morne regret des chimères absentes. Du fond de son réduit sablonneux, le grillon, Les regardant passer, redouble sa chanson; Cybèle, qui les aime, augmente ses verdures, Fait couler le rocher et fleurir le désert Devant ces voyageurs, pour lesquels est ouvert L'empire familier des ténèbres futures. Gypsies Traveling The prophetical tribe, that ardent eyed people, Set out last night, carrying their children On their backs, or yielding to those fierce appetites The ever ready treasure of pendulous breasts. The men travel on foot with their gleaming weapons Alongside the wagons where their kin are huddled, Surveying the heavens with eyes rendered heavy By a mournful regret for vanished illusions. The cricket from the depths of his sandy retreat Watches them as they pass, and louder grows his song; Cybele, who loves them, increases her verdure, Makes the desert blossom, water spurt from the rock Before these travelers for whom is opened wide The familiar domain of the future's darkness. - Translated by William Aggeler Gipsies on the Road The tribe of seers, last night, began its match With burning eyes, and shouldering its young To whose ferocious appetites it swung The wealth of hanging breasts that nought can parch. The men, their weapons glinting in the rays, Walk by the convoy where their folks are carted, Sweeping the far-off skylines with a gaze Regretful of Chimeras long-departed. Out of his hole the cricket sees them pass And sings the louder. Greener grows the grass Because Cybele loves them, and has made The barren rock to gush, the sands to flower, To greet these travellers, before whose power Familiar futures open realms of shade. - Translated by Roy Campbell The Gypsies They set out yesterday, the tribe of ragged seers With burning eyes - bearing their little ones in nests Upon their backs, or giving them, to stop their tears, The teats of inexhaustible and swarthy breasts. The men walk shouldering their rifles silently Beside the hooded wagons with bright tatters hung, And peer into the sky, as if they hoped to see Some old mirage that beckoned them when they were young. No matter where they journey through the meager land, The cricket will sing louder from his lair of sand, And Cybele, who loves them, will smile where they advance: The desert will be fruitful, the arid rock will flow Before the footsteps of these wayfarers, who go Eternally into the lightless realm of chance. - Translated by George Dillon Travelling Bohemians The prophetic tribe of the ardent eyes Yesterday they took the road, holding their babies On their backs, delivering to fierce appetites The always ready treasure of pendulous breasts. The men stick their feet out, waving their guns Alongside the caravan where they tremble together, Scanning the sky their eyes are weighted down In mourning for absent chimeras. At the bottom of his sandy retreat, a cricket Watched passing, redoubles his song, Cybele, who loves, adds more flower, Makes fountains out of rock and blossoms from desert Opening up before these travelers in a yawn- A familiar empire, the inscrutable future. Translated by William A. Sigler

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Adventures in Poetry

Published in the East Village from 1968 to 1975, Adventures in Poetry features poems by New York School poets Anne Waldman, Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, Allen Ginsberg, Bernadette Mayer, and more.

Published between 1968 and 1975, Adventures in Poetry was edited by poet Larry Fagin and printed and assembled at The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery. Featured in its pages is writing by many poets associated with the first and second generation of the New York School. Surreal and often playful, the work provides a valuable access point into a vibrant and social community of writers who overlapped both in life and on the page. We’ve gathered together a selection of works by some of the era’s most enduring voices.

“New England in the Fall: Autumn Gold” by Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg composed a number of auto poems in the 1960s while traveling cross-country in a Volkswagen with his partner, Peter Orlovsky. “New England in the Fall” is one of those poems, a cascading collage of images, thoughts, radio broadcasts, and other details. Ginsberg describes the process for constructing these poems in an interview: “So what I did was talk into the tape, transcribe into school copybooks, paying attention to where I took breaths, or where I clicked the microphone off and on, to find the end of the line, the verse line and then typed it up from the school copy books, and revised it…Most of the cross-country poems were composed that way.”

“Fast Speaking Woman” by Anne Waldman

One of Anne Waldman’s most celebrated works, “Fast Speaking Woman” is a performance poem composed and improvised over several years. Scholar Amy L. Friedman describes  the poem as “inspired by a Mazatec Indian Shamaness guide to the magic mushroom ceremony,” adding that it “celebrates infinite female potentiality in a dizzying release of language.” You can hear Waldman perform the poem here .

“To Norman, en voyage” by Frank O’Hara

“To Norman, en voyage” is a cerebral arrangement of dream elements and questions that all converge on the longing one feels for a distant friend. Published posthumously, the poem is accompanied in the magazine by another poem by Joseph LeSueur, who was partners with O’Hara, and who lived with him from 1955-1965. In it, LeSueur outlines the circumstances of this poem’s composition: “Written August 7, 1959, the same day he wrote ‘ Adieu to Norman, Bon Jour to Joan and Jean-Paul ,’ both of them on the occasion of Norman Bluhm’s departure for Paris. I called frank at the MOMA that morning and suggested that he write a goodbye poem for Norman, whom we were meeting for lunch at Larré’s…”

“New York Diary” by Lewis Warsh

Alongside poetry and art, Adventures in Poetry also includes a number of journal, diary, and travelogue entries. This one, from Lewis Warsh, provides a lens into the social lives, habits and daily life of a number of New York poets.

“Milk” by James Schuyler

With an eye towards personification reminiscent of the french poet Francis Ponge, Schuyler describes the various vessels that have been used in recent history to transport milk. Eventually we learn that the poem was perhaps precipitated by the observation of a car accident. In an interview with poet Mark Hillringhouse, Schuyler  remarks , “What I write about a great deal of the time is something immediate that I see, or something I think about that I’ve seen.”

“from Moving” by Bernadette Mayer

Bernadette Mayer  published Moving  in book form in 1971. Of its genesis, she  writes , “ Moving was written as an attempt to write only when absolutely necessary. I was certain I didn’t want to write out of a desire for a job, something to do, or, worse, love of being an artist. So whenever I felt compelled, I would type a page or so and put them on top of my desk … One day Anne Waldman came to visit and saw all the papers and decided to publish them.”

“Life” by Joe Brainard

Joe Brainard’s “Life” begins with direct simplicity that evolves subtly through the poem from humor to acuity. Along with poetry, Brainard is also known for his drawings and comics , and was published frequently in  Adventures in Poetry. 

“Once Upon a Time” by John Ashbery

The poetry of John Ashbery often appears to unfold through a kind of dream logic, which, as critic Marjorie Perloff writes , “contains sentences that are correct grammatically but have indeterminate referents.” “Once Upon a Time” progresses colloquially from observation to resolution without every really adhering to any singular interpretation.

“Reading Proust,” by Ron Padgett

In “Reading Proust,” Ron Padgett describes some of the more relatable and straightforward elements of the experience of reading a novel, stopping to say what many people must experience without necessarily putting into words.

“Ann Arbor Song” by Ted Berrigan

Part list, part diary, part elegy, “Ann Arbor Song” documents the moment Ted Berrigan first learned of the death of Jack Kerouac. He explains  in a 1982 lecture, “when Jack died and I got the message in the middle of that reading, a man, another faculty person, just as it ended, brought me a little note and he said, “I have a note for you” (I didn’t know him hardly at all although I knew him by sight), and I said ‘thanks,’ you know, I was thinking it was something else.”

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From Baudelaire: Le Voyage  

For the boy playing with his globe and stamps, the world is equal to his appetite— how grand the world in the blaze of the lamps, how petty in tomorrow's small dry light!

One morning we lift anchor, full of brave prejudices, prospects, ingenuity— we swing with the velvet swell of the wave, our infinite is rocked by the fixed sea.

Some wish to fly a cheapness they detest, others, their cradles' terror—others stand with their binoculars on a woman's breast, reptilian Circe with her junk and wand.

Not to be turned to reptiles, such men daze themselves with spaces, light, the burning sky; cold toughens them, they bronze in the sun's blaze and dry the sores of their debauchery.

But the true voyagers are those who move simply to move—like lost balloons! Their heart is some old motor thudding in one groove. It says its single phrase, "Let us depart!"

They are like conscripts lusting for the guns; our sciences have never learned to tag their projects and designs—enormous, vague hopes grease the wheels of these automatons!

We imitate, oh horror! tops and bowls in their eternal waltzing marathon; even in sleep, our fever whips and rolls us, like an angel flogging the brute sun.

Strange sport! where destination has no place or name, and may be anywhere we choose— where man, committed to his endless race, runs like a madman diving for repose!

Our soul is a three-master seeking port: a voice from starboard shouts, "We're at the dock!" Another, more elated, cries from port, "Here's dancing, gin, and girls!" Balls! It's a rock!

The islands sighted by the lookout seem the El Dorados promised us last night; imagination wakes from its drugged dream, sees only ledges in the morning light.

What dragged these patients from their German spas? Shall we throw them in chains, or in the sea? Sailors discovering new Americas, who drown in a mirage of agony!

The worn-out sponge, who scuffles through our slums, sees whisky, paradise, and liberty wherever oil lamps shine in furnished rooms— we see Blue Grottoes, Caesars, and Capri.

Stunningly simple tourists, your pursuit is written in the teardrops in your eyes! Spread out the packing cases of your loot, your azure sapphires made of seas and skies!

We want to break the boredom of our jails and cross the oceans without oars or steam— give us visions to stretch our minds like sails, the blue, exotic shore line of your dream!

Tell us, what have you seen?

"We've seen the stars, a wave or two—we've also seen some sand; although we peer through telescopes and spars, we're often deadly bored as you on land.

The shine of sunlight on the violet sea, the roar of cities when the sun goes down: these stir our hearts with restless energy; we ride on the Indian Ocean, where we drown!

No old château or shrine besieged by crowds of crippled pilgrims sets our souls on fire, as these chance countries gathered from the clouds. Our hearts are always anxious with desire.

Desire, that great elm fertilized by lust, gives its old body, whenever heaven warms its bark that winters and old age encrust; green branches draw the sun into its arms.

Why are you always growing taller, Tree— Oh longer-lived than cypress! Yet we took one or two sketches for your picture book, Brothers who sell your souls for novelty!

We have salaamed to pagan gods with horns, entered shrines peopled by a galaxy of Buddhas, Slavic saints, and unicorns, so rich Rothschild must dream of bankruptcy!

Priests' robes that scattered solid golden flakes, dancers with tattooed bellies and behinds, charmers supported by braziers of snakes..."

Yes, and what else?

Oh trivial, childish minds! You've missed the more important things that we were forced to learn against our will. We've been from top to bottom of the ladder, and see only the pageant of immortal sin:

there women, servile, peacock-tailed, and coarse, marry for money, and love without disgust horny, potbellied tyrants stuffed on lust, slaves' slaves—the sewer in which their gutter pours!

old maids who weep, playboys who live each hour, state banquets loaded with hot sauces, blood and trash, ministers sterilized by dreams of power, workers who love their brutalizing lash;

and everywhere religions like our own all storming heaven, propped with saints who reign like sybarites on beds of nails and frown— all searching for some orgiastic pain!

Many, self-drunk, are lying in the mud— mad now, as they have always been, they roll in torment screaming to the throne of God: "My image and my lord, I hate your soul!"

And others, dedicated without hope, flee the dull herd—each locked in his own world hides in his ivory tower of art and dope— this is the daily news from the whole world!

How sour the knowledge travelers bring away. The world's monotonous and small; we see ourselves today, tomorrow, yesterday, an oasis of horror in sands of ennui!

• Summer Poem Linvitation Au Voyage...

Summer Poem: "L'invitation au voyage" by Charles Baudelaire

UK Literary Editor

Charles Baudelaire’s “L’invitation au voyage” (Invitation to the Voyage) is part of our summer poetry series , dedicated to making the season of vacation lyrical again. Originally published in Les Fleurs du mal in 1857, it is something of the the first great call for holiday getaway. Or so we like to think.

It ought to surprise some, I think, that the poet of misery and ennuis, whose entire artistic project is predicated upon the making of beauty out of murk (an idea neatly encapsulated in the title of his greatest collection: The Flowers of Evil ), could write in longing terms about a foreign locale. Yet it is worth remarking that the idyllic land Baudelaire found so captivating was in fact inspired by the Netherlands. There’s thus no reason this poem couldn’t still very well be in evil-flower territory.

The land of order, beauty, luxury, calm and sensuousness (in no particular order) inspires the great Romantic to some of his lushest verse, not easily replicable in translation. The chorus, which has gone on to become almost ubiquitous in French culture, is particularly hard to replicate: “Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté, / Luxe, calme et volupté.” And although Edna St. Vincent Millay got close to it in 1936, Jack Collings Squire’s earlier effort—which has the benefit of not being bound by copyright—is decent enough to be our translation of choice: The Invitation to the Voyage , by Charles Baudelaire(trans. Jack Collings Squire, 1909) 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.

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L'invitation au voyage

By henri duparc, text & translation.

L'invitation au voyage French source: Charles Baudelaire

Invitation to journey English translation © Richard Stokes

Invitation to journey English source: Richard Stokes

Henri Duparc

Eugène Marie Henri Fouques Duparc (21 January 1848 – 12 February 1933) was a French composer of the late Romantic period. Read more here.

Charles Baudelaire

Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), expresses the changing nature of…

Performances

Previously performed at:.

• Young Artist Auditions (Session 7) 20 Apr 2024
• 74. Mastercourse Showcase Recital: Mastercourse participants, introduced by Mark Padmore 29 Oct 2022
• 68. Mastercourse Day Five 28 Oct 2022
• 65. Anne-Lise Polchlopek, Elenora Pertz: From Paris to the Mediterranean 27 Oct 2022
• 64. Mastercourse Day Four 27 Oct 2022
• 58. Mastercourse Day Three 26 Oct 2022
• 54. Mastercourse Day Two 25 Oct 2022
• 50. Mastercourse Day One 24 Oct 2022
• 24. James Gilchrist & Anna Tilbrook: 25 years of Friendship in Song 18 Oct 2022
• Mary Bevan & Anna Tilbrook: Voyages (dans la lumière) 19 Mar 2022
• 95. Baudelaire in Song 22 Oct 2021
• 68. Christoph Prégardien: Studies and Improvisations 18 Oct 2021
• Grieg, Strauss & Berlioz: Ailish Tynan & James Baillieu 28 Mar 2020
• 63. French Fables: Jess Dandy & Sholto Kynoch 23 Oct 2019
• 53. Invitation Au Voyage: Marie-Laure Garnier & Célia Oneto Bensaid 21 Oct 2019
• A French Songbook: Véronique Gens & Susan Manoff 24 Oct 2018
• Song at Wolfson: William Morgan sings Schumann and Duparc 26 Apr 2018
• Rückert Lieder: Thomas Oliemans & Malcolm Martineau 21 Oct 2017

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The Author of "En Voyage."

JOHN W. CHADWICK

• March 1, 1899

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Bohémiens En Voyage (Gypsies On The Road)

Charles baudelaire 1821 (paris) – 1867 (paris).

La tribu prophétique aux prunelles ardentes Hier s'est mise en route, emportant ses petits Sur son dos, ou livrant à leurs fiers appétits Le trésor toujours prêt des mamelles pendantes. Les hommes vont à pied sous leurs armes luisantes Le long des chariots où les leurs sont blottis, Promenant sur le ciel des yeux appesantis Par le morne regret des chimères absentes. Du fond de son réduit sablonneux, le grillon, Les regardant passer, redouble sa chanson; Cybèle, qui les aime, augmente ses verdures, Fait couler le rocher et fleurir le désert Devant ces voyageurs, pour lesquels est ouvert L'empire familier des ténèbres futures. --------------------------------- --------------------------------- Gypsies Traveling The prophetical tribe, that ardent eyed people, Set out last night, carrying their children On their backs, or yielding to those fierce appetites The ever ready treasure of pendulous breasts. The men travel on foot with their gleaming weapons Alongside the wagons where their kin are huddled, Surveying the heavens with eyes rendered heavy By a mournful regret for vanished illusions. The cricket from the depths of his sandy retreat Watches them as they pass, and louder grows his song; Cybele, who loves them, increases her verdure, Makes the desert blossom, water spurt from the rock Before these travelers for whom is opened wide The familiar domain of the future's darkness. — Translated by William Aggeler --------------------------------- --------------------------------- Gipsies on the Road The tribe of seers, last night, began its match With burning eyes, and shouldering its young To whose ferocious appetites it swung The wealth of hanging breasts that nought can parch. The men, their weapons glinting in the rays, Walk by the convoy where their folks are carted, Sweeping the far-off skylines with a gaze Regretful of Chimeras long-departed. Out of his hole the cricket sees them pass And sings the louder. Greener grows the grass Because Cybele loves them, and has made The barren rock to gush, the sands to flower, To greet these travellers, before whose power Familiar futures open realms of shade. — Translated by Roy Campbell --------------------------------- --------------------------------- The Gypsies They set out yesterday, the tribe of ragged seers With burning eyes — bearing their little ones in nests Upon their backs, or giving them, to stop their tears, The teats of inexhaustible and swarthy breasts. The men walk shouldering their rifles silently Beside the hooded wagons with bright tatters hung, And peer into the sky, as if they hoped to see Some old mirage that beckoned them when they were young. No matter where they journey through the meager land, The cricket will sing louder from his lair of sand, And Cybele, who loves them, will smile where they advance: The desert will be fruitful, the arid rock will flow Before the footsteps of these wayfarers, who go Eternally into the lightless realm of chance. — Translated by George Dillon --------------------------------- --------------------------------- Travelling Bohemians The prophetic tribe of the ardent eyes Yesterday they took the road, holding their babies On their backs, delivering to fierce appetites The always ready treasure of pendulous breasts. The men stick their feet out, waving their guns Alongside the caravan where they tremble together, Scanning the sky their eyes are weighted down In mourning for absent chimeras. At the bottom of his sandy retreat, a cricket Watched passing, redoubles his song, Cybele, who loves, adds more flower, Makes fountains out of rock and blossoms from desert Opening up before these travelers in a yawn— A familiar empire, the inscrutable future. — Translated by William A. Sigler

Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

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Charles Baudelaire

Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe.  more…

All Charles Baudelaire poems | Charles Baudelaire Books

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What of the days when we two dreamed together?     Days marvellously fair, As lightsome as a skyward floating feather     Sailing on summer air— Summer, summer, that came drifting through Fate’s hand to me, to you.

What of the days, my dear? I sometimes wonder     If you too wish this sky Could be the blue we sailed so softly under,     In that sun-kissed July; Sailed in the warm and yellow afternoon, With hearts in touch and tune.

Have you no longing to re-live the dreaming,     Adrift in my canoe? To watch my paddle blade all wet and gleaming     Cleaving the waters through? To lie wind-blown and wave-caressed, until Your restless pulse grows still?

Do you not long to listen to the purling     Of foam athwart the keel? To hear the nearing rapids softly swirling     Among their stones, to feel The boat’s unsteady tremor as it braves The wild and snarling waves?

What need of question, what of your replying?     Oh! well I know that you Would toss the world away to be but lying     Again in my canoe, In listless indolence entranced and lost, Wave-rocked, and passion tossed.

Ah me! my paddle failed me in the steering     Across love’s shoreless seas; All reckless, I had ne’er a thought of fearing     Such dreary days as these. When through the self-same rapids we dash by, My lone canoe and I.

From Flint and Feather: The Complete Poems of E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) (The Musson Book Co., Limited, 1917) by Emily Pauline Johnson. This poem is in the public domain.

More by this poet

My heart forgot its God for love of you,     And you forgot me, other loves to learn;  Now through a wilderness of thorn and rue    Back to my God I turn. 

And just because my God forgets the past,     And in forgetting does not ask to know Why I once left His arms for yours, at last    Back to my God I go. 

At Crow's Nest Pass

At Crow’s Nest Pass the mountains rend Themselves apart, the rivers wend     A lawless course about their feet,      And breaking into torrents beat In useless fury where they blend     At Crow’s Nest Pass. 

The nesting eagle, wise, discreet,  Wings up the gorge’s lone retreat And makes some barren crag her friend     At Crow's Nest Pass. 

The City and the Sea

                       I  To none the city bends a servile knee;     Purse-proud and scornful, on her heights she stands,  And at her feet the great white moaning sea     Shoulders incessantly the grey-gold sands,— One the Almighty’s a child since time began,     And one the might of Mammon, born of clods;  For all the city is the work of man,     But all the sea is God’s.                         II And she—between the ocean and the town—    Lies cursed of one and by the other blest: 

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