Beauty flames and Dies

4-4-2012

Graphite Pencil

Drawing based on the poem below.

BEAUTY

by: Charles Baudelaire

 AM as lovely as a dream in stone,

And this my heart where each finds death in turn,

Inspires the poet with a love as lone

As clay eternal and as taciturn.

 

Swan-white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows,

My throne is in the heaven's azure deep;

I hate all movements that disturb my pose,

I smile not ever, neither do I weep.

 

Before my monumental attitudes,

That breathe a soul into the plastic arts,

My poets pray in austere studious moods,

 

For I, to fold enchantment round their hearts,

Have pools of light where beauty flames and dies,

The placid mirrors of my luminous eyes.