Invitation to the voyage

The first time I was ever published was in an anthology of young American poets. It wasn't a major publication and you would be hard pressed to find a copy today. I figured since we get enough hard line talk, we could maybe wash away the bitter after taste of reality with a little art.

Here is one of the first poems I ever read, and one that got me starting writing. Yes, it was to try to get a girl.

Invitation To The Voyage
- Charles Baudelaire

My child, my sister, dream
How sweet all things would seem
Were we in that kind land to live together,
And there love slow and long,
There love and die among
Those scenes that image you, that sumptuous weather

Drowned suns that glimmer there
Through cloud disheveled air
Move me with such mystery as appears
Within those other skies
Of your treacherous eyes
When I behold them shining through their tears

There, there is nothing but grace and measure,
Richness, quietness, and pleasure

Furniture that wears
The luster of the years
Softly would glow within our glowing chamber,
Flowers of rarest bloom
Proffering their perfume
Mixed with vague fragrances of amber;
Gold ceilings would there be,
Mirrors deep as the sea,
The walls all in an Eastern splendor hung--
Nothing but should address
The soul's loneliness,
Speaking her sweet and secret native tongue

There, there is nothing but grace and measure,
Richness, quietness, and pleasure

See, sheltered from the swells
There in the still canals
Those drowsy ships that dream of sailing forth;
It is to satisfy
Your least desire, they ply
Hither through all the waters of the earth

The sun at close of day
Clothes the fields of hay,
Then the canals, at last the town entire
In hyacinth and gold:
Slowly the land is rolled
Sleepward under a sea of gentle fire

There, there is nothing but grace and measure,
Richness, quietness, and pleasure