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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE VIAL, by CHARLES BAUDELAIRE Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: There are potent perfumes to which nothing / is impervious Last Line: Gnawing me away, o life and death of my heart! Subject(s): Death; Perfume; Dead, The | |||
There are potent perfumes to which nothing Is impervious. They penetrate glass, it is said. Opening a little coffer come from the East, Its lock creaking and groaning reluctant, Or some dark dusty cupboard in a derelict house Suffused with the acrid aroma of time, Sometimes one finds an old reminiscent vial From which surges vibrant a spirit returned. Darkling chrysalids, a thousand thoughts slumbered, Soft in the dismal shadows throbbing, Which loosen their wings now soaring aloft, Azure-tinged, glazen rose, dappled with gold. Intoxicating remembrances flutter In that disquieted air; the eyes close; vertigo Seizes the soul overcome and thrusts it with two hands Toward a chasm dim with human miasma, Pitching it to the brink of a centenary pit, Where, scented Lazarus breaking through its shroud, There stirs in its waking the spectral cadaver Of an old moldering love, enticing and entombed. Thus when I am lost to the memory of men, When to the corner of some grim cupboard I am tossed, old devastated vial, Decrepit, dirty, dusty, abject, viscous, cracked, I shall be your coffin, amiable pestilence! Witness of your virulence and power, Dear poison by the angels compounded, potion Gnawing me away, O life and death of my heart! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FRIEND KILLED IN THE WAR by ANTHONY HECHT FOR JAMES MERRILL: AN ADIEU by ANTHONY HECHT TARANTULA: OR THE DANCE OF DEATH by ANTHONY HECHT CHAMPS D?ÇÖHONNEUR by ERNEST HEMINGWAY NOTE TO REALITY by TONY HOAGLAND A VOYAGE TO CYTHERA by CHARLES BAUDELAIRE |
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