finds her exotic and wonderful, as he felt about the places he’d traveled. He continues, “Within your aromatic forest stay!,” further developing how her hair represents more than just simple visual appeal. With this in mind, Baudelaire restates how her hair causes him to reminisce. At the end of the verse he ties audio into the use of synesthesia with music. Baudelaire explains how his soul lifts in a similar way to how music can cause people to feel uplifted and free. Any music lover would understand completely the feeling he describes, just like any well travelled person would understand his earlier verses about far off places. In the next two verses, Baudelaire uses visual symbolism to further convey how elated he feels from experiencing her hair. By comparing how he feels around the sights, smells, and feel of her hair to the sensations experienced in those settings he creates in the third and fourth stanza, it becomes easier for the reader to understand the emotion Baudelaire conveys. The first two lines of the third stanza depict a hot climate where, “both tree and man swoon,” and though her hair reminds him of this feeling, he wishes at the same time that through her hair he could travel to those places, unrealistic though that desire may be. As a souvenir from a wonderful vacation, Baudelaire wishes to express the feelings of having an item that reminds one of a time or place, feeling comforted by the memory yet longing to be there again. Further on, the line, “I dream upon your sea of ebony,” in itself represents a great example of his feelings for her, however Baudelaire
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goes on to illustrate a beautiful scene that captures how she brought to mind other images for him to lose himself in. He verbally sketches a port where he can relax and, “imbibe colour and sound and scent,” and further to enjoy the sun and the sights before going back to sea. His vivid descriptions of the port cause the reader to get lost in the imagery as well so that he or she can understand the similar feeling of getting lost in the woman’s hair. Next, he brings the reader back out of the scene of the port but continues to use the emotions brought up from that scene to further detail his own impression of her hair. Whereas before he simply described a relaxing scene by the ocean many people could possibly relate to, he expands on the idea by comparing her and her hair to the port and the ocean he illustrated in the last stanza. The fourth stanza I’ll plunge my head, enamored of its pleasure, in this black ocean where the other hides; My subtle spirit then will know a measure of fertile idleness and fragrant leisure, lulled by the infinite rhythm of its tides! details again that by laying his head in the curls of her hair he is reminded of the port scene, as well as other memories. The, “black ocean where the other hides,” portrays how she herself acts mysteriously like the sea of tranquility, which is so far away and uncharted, at least in his time. Further on, when he says, “Of fertile idleness and fragrant leisure,” Baudelaire is explaining the idea of having nothing to do