Remorse and Regret

With the setting sun over the River Arno

One of my all time favorite poets is Charles Baudelaire. In part because his scandalous collection, Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil) contained what a court in 1857 considered to be public indecency but mostly because I read his words not with my mind but with an aching part within my soul.

My all time favorite, Recueillement was not one of the six banned poems and it changed the way I conduct myself in the world everyday. No piece of poetry can retain its true meaning when translated but it would be pointless to share it here in its native French, so instead I’m sharing what I consider to be the most authentic English translation.

Be good, my Sorrow: hush now: settle down.
You sighed for dusk, and now it comes: look there!
A denser atmosphere obscures the town,
To some restoring peace, to others care.

While the lewd multitude, like hungry beasts,
By pleasure scourged (no thug so fierce as he!)
Go forth to seek remorse among their feasts —
Come, take my hand; escape from them with me.

From balconies of sky, around us yet,
Lean the dead years in fashions that have ceased.
Out of the depth of waters smiles Regret.

The sun sinks moribund beneath an arch,
And like a long shroud rustling from the East,
Hark, Love, the gentle Night is on the march.

But what does it mean and why am I sharing a French poem while traveling in Italy?

It is said that Baudelaire was standing on a bridge overlooking the River Arno in Florence when he wrote it. As he watched the setting sun, the closing of another day he will never live again, he describes two possibilties we have at the end of everyday - remorse over the things we did that we wish we hadn’t done or regret for the things we wished we had done but didn’t. I have never watched a sunset the same way since being introduced to Recueillement and I close each day aiming for neither remorse nor regret. I often fail but I attempt none the less.

Sunset over the River Arno from the Ponte Vecchio

I stood on that same bridge tonigh, watching the close of another day - without regret or remorse. I have Charles Baudelaire to thank for that.

I hope you will view the setting sun in a different way now, too.