# Baudelaire's most famous poems

The poems from Les Fleurs du mal (and the prose poems) that are most learned, quoted and studied.

- 3 votes · 18 items
- Nov 9, 2023 · Maxime Martin
- https://even.best/en/l/2381/baudelaire-s-most-famous-poems

## Top 18

1. **Spleen ("When the low, heavy sky…")** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — The most famous of the four "Spleen" poems.
2. **To a Passer-by** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — A fleeting encounter in the street, from Tableaux parisiens.
3. **To the Reader** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — The opening poem, which calls the reader a hypocrite.
4. **The Albatross** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The poet compared to a bird that is majestic in flight but clumsy on deck.
5. **Correspondences** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The sonnet of synaesthesia, a manifesto for Symbolism.
6. **Invitation to the Voyage** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — A dreamed-of land of order and beauty.
7. **A Carcass** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — A corpse by the roadside; a poem that shocked.
8. **Get Drunk** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Prose Poems. Always be drunk: on wine, poetry or virtue.
9. **Evening Harmony** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — A musical pantoum about dusk.
10. **Elevation** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The spirit soaring above the world.
11. **Head of Hair** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The beloved's hair as a voyage.
12. **Hymn to Beauty** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Does beauty come from heaven or hell?
13. **The Cat** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — One of his poems about cats.
14. **Meditation** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — A calm dialogue with his own pain.
15. **The Voyage** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The long poem that closes the 1861 edition.
16. **Benediction** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The cursed poet's fate, from birth.
17. **The Beacons** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — A tribute to great painters, from Rubens to Delacroix.
18. **Exotic Perfume** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — A distant island conjured by a scent.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.