Read the poem: “The Clock”

by Charles Baudelaire

Extract of The Flowers of Evil

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French Literature – French Poetry – Charles Baudelaire
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The Clock

The Chinese tell the time in the eyes of cats. One day a missionary, walking in the suburbs of Nanking, noticed that he had forgotten his watch, and asked a little boy what time it was.

The youngster of the heavenly Empire hesitated at first; then, carried away by his thought he answered: “I’ll tell you.” A few moments later he reappeared, bearing in his arms an immense cat, and looking, as they say, into the whites of its eyes, he announced without hesitation: “It’s not quite noon.” Which was the fact.

As for me, if I turn toward the fair feline, to her so aptly named, who is at once the honor of her sex, the pride of my heart and the fragrance of my mind, be it by night or by day, in the full light or in the opaque shadows, in the depths of her adorable eyes I always tell the time distinctly, always the same, a vast, a solemn hour, large as space, without division of minutes or of seconds,—an immovable hour which is not marked on the clocks, yet is slight as a sigh, is rapid as the lifting of a lash.

And if some intruder comes to disturb me while my glance rests upon that charming dial, if some rude and intolerant genie, some demon of the evil hour, comes to ask: “What are you looking at so carefully? What are you hunting for in the eyes of that being? Do you see the time there, mortal squanderer and do-nothing?” I shall answer, unhesitant: “Yes, I see the time, it is Eternity!”

Is not this, madame, a really worth-while madrigal, just as affected as yourself? Indeed, I have had so much pleasure in embroidering this pretentious gallantry, that I shall ask you for nothing in exchange.

Translated by Joseph T. Shipley

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French Literature – French Poetry – Charles Baudelaire

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by Charles Baudelaire

Extract of The Flowers of Evil

The Clock

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