Correspondences

Nature is a temple where living pillars
Let forth at times confused words;
There man passes through forests of symbols
Which observe him with familiar eyes.

Like long echoes which mingle in the distance,
In a dark and profound unity,
Vast as the night and the light,
Perfumes, colours and sounds answer each other.

There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children,
Sweet as oboes, green as meadows,
-And others, corrupt, rich and triumphant,

Having the expansion of infinite things,
Like amber, musk, benzoin and incense,
Which sing of the transports of the mind and the senses.

Baudelaire