This time: a connection between 'The eyes of the poor'(Baudealaire) and 'How beautiful you are' (The Cure)
How beautiful you are
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 greyish 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 the air
And all six eyes stared fixedly on me and you
The father's eyes said "Beautiful!
How beautiful you are!"
The boy's eyes said
"How beautiful!
She shimmers like a star!"
The childs 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 thoughts 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 fathers eyes said "Beautiful!
How beautiful you are!"
The boys eyes said
"How beautiful! She glitters like a star!"
The child's eyes uttered nothing
But a flat? and utter joy
And stilled my heart with sadness
For the way we are
For the way we are
For 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
The eyes of the poor (C. Baudelaire)
"ah! you want to know why i hate you today. it will probably be less easy for you to understand than for me to explain it to you; you are, i think, the most perfect example of feminine impenetrability that can 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 corner of a new boulevard, still littered with plaster and already displaying its unfinished splendours. the cafe glittered. (about 10 lines further detail the gaslights and the people around)...."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 extrordinarily serious, and the 6 eyes stared fixedly at the new cafe with an equal admiration, differentiated in each according to age.
"the fatther'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 sovreignty 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 it is to understand one another, dearest, and so incommunicable is thought, even between people who are in love!"
