Dear indolent, I love to see,

Indolent darling, how I love

In your body bright,

To see the skin

How like shimmering silk the skin

Of your body so beautiful

Reflects the light !

Shimmer like silk!

On the deep ocean of your hair

Upon your heavy head of hair

Where perfume laves,

With its acrid scents,

Odorous and vagabond sea

Adventurous, odorant sea

Of blue and brown waves,

With blue and brown waves,

Like a vessel awakening

Like a vessel that awakens

When morning winds rise

To the morning wind,

My dreaming soul begins to sail

My dreamy soul sets sail

Toward remote skies.

For a distant sky.

Your two eyes that neither sweetness

Your eyes where nothing is revealed

Nor bitterness hold

Of bitter or sweet,

Are two chilly gems mingled of

Are two cold jewels where are mingled

Iron and gold.

Iron and gold.

When you walk in rhythm, lovely

To see you walking in cadence

With abandonment,

With fine abandon,

You seem to be swayed by a wand,

One would say a snake which dances

A dancing serpent.

On the end of a staff.

Your child's head under the burden

Under the weight of indolence

Of your indolence

Your child-like head sways

Sways as delicately as a

Gently to and fro like the head

Young elephant's,

Of a young elephant,

And your body bends and straightens

And your body stretches and leans

Like a slender ship

Like a slender ship

That, plunging and rolling, lets the

That rolls from side to side and dips

Yards in water dip.

Its yards in the sea.

When, like a stream by thawing of

Like a stream swollen by the thaw

Glaciers made replete,

Of rumbling glaciers,

The water of your mouth rises

When the water of your mouth rises

Up to your teeth,

To the edge of your teeth,

I drink a Bohemian wine,

It seems I drink Bohemian wine,

Powerful and tart,

Bitter and conquering,

A liquid sky that sows its stars

A liquid sky that scatters

Within my heart !

Stars in my heart!