Correspondances [English translation]

In Nature's temple, living pillars rise,

Speaking sometimes in words of abstruse sense;

Man walks through woods of symbols, dark and dense,

Which gaze at him with fond familiar eyes.

Like distant echoes blent in the beyond

In unity, in a deep darksome way,

Vast as black night and vast as splendent day,

Perfumes and sounds and colors correspond.

Some scents are cool as children's flesh is cool,

Sweet as are oboes, green as meadowlands,

And others rich, corrupt, triumphant, full,

Expanding as infinity expands:

Benzoin or musk or amber that incenses,

Hymning the ecstasy of soul and senses.