It was at least 15 years ago that I first read this poem and back then it did not have the impact that it did when I read it today. This proves that as you mature and grow as a reader, literature takes on different meanings. Since the poem is a sonnet and therefore short, I will include the translation by Richard Wilbur so that we are all on the same page.
Nature is a temple whose living colonnades
Breathe forth a mystic speech in fitful sighs;
Man wanders among the symbols in those glades
Where all things watch him with familiar eyes.
Like dwindling echoes gathered far away
Into a deep and thronging unison
Huge as the night or as the light of day,
All scents and sounds and colors meet as one.
Perfumes there are as sweet as the oboe’s sound,
Green as the prairies, fresh as a child’s caress,
—And there are others, rich, corrupt, profound
And an infinite pervasiveness,
Like myrrh, or musk, or amber, that excite
The ecstasies of sense, the soul’s delight.
This poem establishes correspondences between objects in Nature and the symbols and archetypes that populate our psyches. Take a look at the first stanza. The “living colonnades” are trees. The imagery evokes a Druid ceremony taking place within a sacred grove. The sound of the wind through the trees helps shift the person’s consciousness so as to be able to perceive the mystical forms around. All types of symbolism are beautifully evoked in this passage. No matter what a tree symbolizes for you individually—strength, spiritual growth, kabbalistic sefiroth—they are all summoned by the words here.
In the second stanza, the senses begin to shift. The echoes and the unison of sound make me think of the collective unconscious. All is connected and there is a shared sense of existence. We are all part of the Divine consciousness.
I really love the third stanza. Here Baudelaire uses synesthesia to describe his mystical experience. I have always found this to be an apt way to describe the ineffable. Scents are likened to sound, color, and touch. I think it works perfectly here.
In the final stanza, Baudelaire expresses a sense of ecstasy as his soul enters a state of bliss as a result of becoming in tune with the infinite, or the Divine. I suspect he realized that, in addition to the correspondence between nature and the realm of symbols, that there is also a correspondence between his soul and the Divine spirit.
I confess that the more I read Baudelaire, the more I appreciate his genius. I think this poem is fantastic and I wish I could read it in French. C’est la vie. I’ll just have to read the translated version again.