Invitation to the Voyage by Baudelaire: the full text, and the country it invents

The PoemL'Invitation au voyage, the Complete Original Text

The poem appears in Les Fleurs du mal, in the section Spleen et Idéal. It alternates stanzas of twelve lines with a two-line refrain, repeated three times. Here it is exactly as Baudelaire wrote it.

Mon enfant, ma sœur,
Songe à la douceur
D'aller là-bas vivre ensemble !
Aimer à loisir,
Aimer et mourir
Au pays qui te ressemble !
Les soleils mouillés
De ces ciels brouillés
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes
Si mystérieux
De tes traîtres yeux,
Brillant à travers leurs larmes.

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Des meubles luisants,
Polis par les ans,
Décoreraient notre chambre ;
Les plus rares fleurs
Mêlant leurs odeurs
Aux vagues senteurs de l'ambre,
Les riches plafonds,
Les miroirs profonds,
La splendeur orientale,
Tout y parlerait
À l'âme en secret
Sa douce langue natale.

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Vois sur ces canaux
Dormir ces vaisseaux
Dont l'humeur est vagabonde ;
C'est pour assouvir
Ton moindre désir
Qu'ils viennent du bout du monde.
Les soleils couchants
Revêtent les champs,
Les canaux, la ville entière,
D'hyacinthe et d'or ;
Le monde s'endort
Dans une chaude lumière.

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal.

A plain prose rendering, offered as a reading aid. The print itself keeps the original French.

My child, my sister, think of the sweetness of going out there to live together. To love at leisure, to love and to die in the country that resembles you. The drowned suns of those clouded skies hold for my spirit the same mysterious charm as your treacherous eyes, shining through their tears.

There, all is order and beauty, luxury, calm and delight.

Gleaming furniture, polished by the years, would decorate our room; the rarest flowers, mingling their scents with the vague fragrance of amber, the rich ceilings, the deep mirrors, the splendour of the East, everything there would speak in secret to the soul, in its own sweet native tongue.

There, all is order and beauty, luxury, calm and delight.

See on those canals the sleeping ships, whose mood is to wander; it is to satisfy your slightest desire that they come from the ends of the earth. The setting suns clothe the fields, the canals, the whole town in hyacinth and gold; the world falls asleep in a warm light.

There, all is order and beauty, luxury, calm and delight.

Where Does This Voyage Lead?

Nowhere, and that is the whole point. Baudelaire describes no real country: he invents a destination out of the person he is speaking to, a country that resembles you. The canals, the sleeping ships and the golden light suggest Holland, but no place is ever named. The voyage is a proposal, not an itinerary.

The woman addressed is traditionally identified as Marie Daubrun, an actress Baudelaire loved. The poem calls her my child, my sister, two words that immediately set aside the ordinary register of desire: what is promised here is not passion but peace.

A Stanza-by-Stanza Reading

Three stanzas of twelve lines, each followed by the same refrain. The lines are very short, five and seven syllables, which gives the poem its lullaby sway.

First Stanza: The Call

The whole poem is in the conditional or the infinitive: to go, to love, to die. Nothing is decided, everything is offered. The drowned suns and clouded skies install a veiled, unglittering weather, and Baudelaire ties them directly to the eyes of the woman, shining through their tears. Landscape and face are already the same thing.

Second Stanza: The Room

The voyage shrinks and becomes an interior: furniture polished by the years, rare flowers, amber, deep mirrors. A poem of elsewhere that ends in a closed room. The finest turn comes last: in that room everything would speak to the soul in its own sweet native tongue, as though the dreamed place were really a language you had always known.

Third Stanza: The Ships and the Sunset

The room opens onto the harbour. The ships are there, wandering by nature but asleep, come from the ends of the earth for a single desire. Then the sunset covers everything in hyacinth and gold, and the whole world falls asleep in a warm light. The poem fades out instead of concluding.

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté, luxe, calme et volupté. L'Invitation au voyage, the refrain

Why the Refrain Never Leaves Your Head

Two lines, seven syllables each, four nouns laid side by side without a verb. The refrain tells no story, it lists a state, and that is exactly what makes it unforgettable. It returns three times, always identical, like a door being reopened. Many people know these two lines without ever having read the whole poem, and Matisse even took them as the title of a painting.

The Poem on Your Wall

At Heure d'été we set the full text of L'Invitation au voyage as a typographic art print, composed like the page of an old edition: the poem, the poet's name, nothing else. Printed to order on 170 g/m² matte paper, it finds its place in a reading corner, above a desk, or inside a gallery wall of literary prints.

A poem you love on a wall is a text you reread. That is the whole idea.

The Last Word

L'Invitation au voyage is the gentlest poem in Les Fleurs du mal, the one where Baudelaire does not complain but offers. Read it, reread it, and if it is one of yours, give it a place where you can see it every day.