Baudelaire

I've always found the  final verses of Elevation written by French poet Charles Baudelaire utterly inspiring.

 There is a transcendental feel to it...a sort of dark Alice in Wonderland poetry. 

Elevation

Fly! Oh, indeed, fly far from this unwholesome place!

Go and be purged in radiance, wheeling higher and higher:

Be drunken, be washed through with the transparent fire,

Be lost in the serene bright solitudes of space!

From these low vapours hanging in the windless air,

From these miasmas fraught with ancient woe and ill,

Most blessed, most fortunate is he who can at will

Take flight into a region luminous and fair —

He whose unwearied thoughts on effortless light wings

Go up like larks at morning, and circle without fear

Above the wakening land — aloof and free — and hear

The voices of the flowers and of all voiceless things!

(as translated by George Dillon in 1936).

Envole-toi bien loin de ces miasmes morbides;

Va te purifier dans l'air supérieur,

Et bois, comme une pure et divine liqueur,

Le feu clair qui remplit les espaces limpides.

Derrière les ennuis et les vastes chagrins

Qui chargent de leur poids l'existence brumeuse,

Heureux celui qui peut d'une aile vigoureuse

S'élancer vers les champs lumineux et sereins;

Celui dont les pensers, comme des alouettes,

Vers les cieux le matin prennent un libre essor,

— Qui plane sur la vie, et comprend sans effort

Le langage des fleurs et des choses muettes!