POEMS IN PROSE
FROM
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
TRANSLATED BY
ARTHUR SYMONS
LONDON
ELKIN MATHEWS, CORK STREET
1913
The "Petits Poèmes en Prose" are experiments, and they are alsoconfessions. "Who of us," says Baudelaire in his dedicatory preface,"has not dreamed, in moments of ambition, of the miracle of a poeticprose, musical without rhythm and without rhyme, subtle and staccatoenough to follow the lyric motions of the soul, the wavering outlinesof meditation, the sudden starts of the conscience?" This miracle hehas achieved in these bagatelles laborieuses, to use his own words,these astonishing trifles, in which the art is not more novel, preciseand perfect than the quality of thought and of emotion. In translatinginto English a few of these little masterpieces, which have given me somuch delight for so many years, I have tried to be absolutely faithfulto the sense, the words, and the rhythm of the original.
A. S.