~
Do you come from on high or out of the abyss,
O Beauty? Godless yet divine, your gaze 
indifferently showers favor and shame, 
and yet some have likened you to wine. 
Your eyes reflect the sunset and the dawn;
your scatter perfumes like a windy night; 
your kisses are a drug, your mouth the urn 
dispensing fear to heroes, fervor to boys. 
Whether spawned by hell or sprung from the stars,
Fate like a spaniel follows at your heel; 
you sow haphazard fortune and despair, 
ruling all things, responsible for none. 
You walk on corpses, Beauty, undismayed,
and Horror coruscates among your gems; 
Murder, one of your dearest trinkets, throbs
on your shameless belly: make it dance! 
Dazzled, the dayfly flutters round your wick, 
crackles, flares, and cries: I bless this torch! 
The pining lover for his lady swoons 
like a dying man adoring his own tomb.
Who cares if you come from paradise or hell, 
appalling Beauty, artless and monstrous scourge, 
if only your eyes, your smile or your foot reveal 
the Infinite I love and have never known?
Come from Satan, come from God - who cares,
Angel or siren, rhythm, fragrance, light, 
provided you transform -
This hideous universe, this heavy hour? 
~Hymn to Beauty~ Charles Baudelaire