Michael Buhagiar

Correspondences (Translation From Charles Baudelaire)

Nature is a temple whose columns are alive
And confusions of sounds at times betray.
Man through a forest of symbols does strive,
And he knows them somehow as he goes on his way.

Like long-sustained echoes far away
Moving in a oneness shadowy and profound,
Vast as the darkness and the day,
Perfumes and colours and sounds correspond.

There are perfumes fresh as the flesh of an infant,
Soft as an oboe, green as a prairie,
—And others compounded, rich and triumphant,

Expanding somehow like a thing of infinity,
Like amber, musk, bergamot, and ...