Sensazioni
As in the mid-nineteenth century Paris here the crisis becomes a starting point for contemplation.
Krìsis, or spleen, it is a time when one grasps the flower of evil,
and traveling through the senses ...
Everything is form and movement,
Conversely and corresponding.
Correspondences
Nature's a temple where each living column,
At times, gives forth vague words. There Man
advances through forest-groves of symbols, strange
[and solemn,
Who follow him with their familiar glances.
As long-drawn echoes mingle and transfuse
Till in a deep, dark unison they swoon,
Vast as the night or as the vault of noon
So are commingled perfumes, sounds, and hues.
There can be perfumes cool as children's flesh,
Like fiddIes, sweet, like meadows greenly fresh.
Rich, complex, and triumphant,
Others roll with the vast range of all non-finite things
Amber, musk, incense, benjamin, each sings
The transports of the senses and the soul.
Charles Baudelaire
From "Les fleurs du mal", 1857
