This translation of Baudelaire’s poem Recueillement is by Gérard Noyau
Meditation
Calm down, my Grief, be stiller still
You were calling out for the Night; it falls, it’s here:
A dark mist wraps around the town,
To some bringing peace, to others anxiety.
As the vile mass of mortals,
Under the cosh of Pleasure, this pitiless executioner,
Go gather remorse in the raves to slavery
My Grief, give me your hand; come this way,
Far from them. See the lost years bend forward
In antique gowns, on heaven’s balconies;
See rise from the depths of the waters smiling Regret;
See the dying Sun fall asleep under an arch,
And, like a long shroud fanning out in the East,
Listen, my dear one, listen to the sweet Night on the march.
~
Gérard Noyau’s translations of his father’s poetry were published earlier this year in the book Earth on fire and other poems, the first translation into English of the poems of Francophone Mauritian writer René Noyau (1911–1984)