Melancholy, by Odilon Redon, 1876. The Art Institute of Chicago, Margaret Day Blake, Mr. and Mrs. Henry C. Woods, and William McCallin McKee memorial endowments.
Lapham’s Quarterly editorial board member Emily Allen-Hornblower read this poem in French at Lewis H. Lapham’s September 2024 memorial. Charles Baudelaire wrote it in 1861, during a period of despair that was also one of his most artistically adventurous, when he was reeling from the humiliation of an obscenity trial that had, he felt, compromised his magnum opus, Les fleurs du mal. “Recueillement,” translated here as “Introspection,” usually appears in English under the titles “Meditation” or “Contemplation.” Both words miss “the specific subject and process of the poem, which is looking inward,” explains Nathan Brown, who translated the poem anew for Lapham’s Quarterly. “Hence the invocation to see in the first tercet. The title's contrast with looking outward is emphasized by the application of cuellir to those who go to the party: rather than gathering from without, we are gathering within.” Professor of English at Concordia University in Montreal, Brown is founding director of the Centre for Expanded Poetics and the translator of a dual-language edition of The Flowers of Evil, published by Verso in January 2025.
Recueillement
Sois sage, ô ma Douleur, et tiens-toi plus tranquille.
Tu réclamais le Soir; il descend; le voici:
Une atmosphère obscure enveloppe la ville,
Aux uns portant la paix, aux autres le souci.
Pendant que des mortels la multitude vile,
Sous le fouet du Plaisir, ce bourreau sans merci,
Va cueillir des remords dans la fête servile,
Ma Douleur, donne-moi la main; viens par ici,
Loin d’eux. Vois se pencher les défuntes Années,
Sur les balcons du ciel, en robes suranées;
Surgir du fond des eaux le Regret souriant;
Le Soleil moribund s’endormir sous une arche,
Et, comme un long linceul traînant à l’Orient,
Entends, ma chère, entends la douce Nuit qui marche.
Introspection
Behave yourself, O my Sorrow, and calm down.
You clamored for Evening; it descends; it is here:
A dark mood envelops the city,
Bringing peace to some, worry to others.
While the vile multitude of mortals,
Under the whip of Pleasure, that merciless torturer,
Go to glean remorse at the slavish party,
My Sorrow, give me your hand; come this way,
Far from them. See the bygone Years inclining,
On balconies of the sky, in outdated dresses;
Smiling Regret rising from the depths of the waters;
The declining Sun falls asleep beneath an arch,
And, like a long shroud trailing in the East,
Hear, my love, hear the stride of tender Night.