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Reference to: 
The Eyes of the Poor
A poem by Charles Baudelaire  
Petits Poemes en Prose (Little Poems in Prose)

The Eyes of the Poor

​

Ah! you want to know why I hate you to-day. It will probably be less easy for you to understand than for me to explain it to you; for you are, I think, the most perfect example of feminine impenetrability that could possibly be found.

 

We had spent a long day together, and it had seemed to me short. We had promised one another that we would think the same thoughts and that our two souls should become one soul; a dream which is not original, after all, except that, dreamed by all men, it has been realised by none.

In the evening you were a little tired, and you sat down outside a new cafe at the comer of a new boulevard, still littered with plaster and already displaying proudly its unfinished splendours. The cafe glittered. The very gas put on all the fervency of a fresh start, and lighted up with its full force the blinding whiteness of the walls, the dazzling sheets of glass in the mirrors, the gilt of cornices and mouldings, the chubby-cheeked pages straining back from hounds in leash, the ladies laughing at the falcons on their wrists, the nymphs and goddesses carrying fruits and pies and game on their heads, the Hebes and Ganymedes holding out at arm's-length little jars of syrups or parti-coloured obelisks of ices; the whole of history and of mythology brought together to make a paradise for gluttons.

Exactly opposite to us, in the roadway, stood a man of about forty years of age, with a weary face and a greyish beard, holding a little boy by one hand and carrying on the other arm a little fellow too weak to walk. He was taking the nursemaid's place, and had brought his children out for a walk in the evening. All were in rags. The three faces were extraordinarily serious, and the six eyes stared fixedly at the new cafe with an equal admiration, differentiated in each according to age.

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The father's eyes said: "How beautiful it is! how beautiful it is! One would think that all the gold of the poor world had found its way to these walls." The boy's eyes said: "How beautiful it is! how beautiful it is! But that is a house which only people who are not like us can enter." As for the little one's eyes,they were too fascinated to express anything but stupid and utter joy. Song-writers say that pleasure ennobles the soul and softens the heart. The song was right that evening,so far as I was concerned. Not only was I touched by this family of eyes, but I felt rather ashamed of our glasses and decanters, so much too much for our thirst.

 

I turned to look at you, dear love, that I might read my own thought in you; I gazed deep into your eyes, so beautiful and so strangely sweet, your green eyes that are the home of caprice and under the sovereignty of the Moon and you said to me: "Those people are insupportable to me with their staring saucer-eyes! Couldn't you tell the head waiter to send them away?"

So hard is it to understand one another, dearest, and so incommunicable is thought, even between people who are in love.

How Beautiful You Are

​

You want to know why I hate you?

Well I'll try and explain

You remember that day in Paris

When we wandered through the rain

And promised to each other

That we'd always think the same

And dreamed that dream

To be two souls as one

And stopped just as the sun set

And waited for the night

Outside a glittering building

Of glittering glass and burning light

And in the road before us

Stood a weary grayish man

Who held a child upon his back

A small boy by the hand

The three of them were dressed in rags

And thinner than air

And all six eyes stared fixedly on you

The father's eyes said "Beautiful!

How beautiful you are!"

The boy's eyes said

"How beautiful!

She shimmers like a star!"

The child's eyes uttered nothing

But a mute and utter joy

And filled my heart with shame for us

At the way we are

I turned to look at you

To read my thought upon your face

And gazed so deep into your eyes

So beautiful and strange

Until you spoke

And showed me understanding is a dream

"I hate these people staring

Make them go away from me!"

The father's eyes said "Beautiful!

How beautiful you are!"

The boy's eyes said

"How beautiful!

She shimmers like a star!"

The child's eyes uttered nothing

But a mute and utter joy

And filled my heart with shame for us

At the way we are

And this is why I hate you

And how I understand

That no-one ever knows or loves another

Or loves another

Songwriters: Boris Williams / Laurence Andrew Tolhurst / Porl Thompson / Robert James Smith / Simon Gallup

How Beautiful You Are lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

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