Dear indolent, I love to see,

I love to watch, while you are lazing,

In your body bright,

Your skin. It iridesces

How like shimmering silk the skin

Like silk or satin, smoothly-glazing

Reflects the light !

The light that it caresses.

On the deep ocean of your hair

Under your tresses dark and deep

Where perfume laves,

Where acrid perfumes drown,

Odorous and vagabond sea

A fragrant sea whose breakers sweep

Of blue and brown waves,

In mazes blue or brown,

Like a vessel awakening

My soul, a ship, to the attraction

When morning winds rise

Of breezes that bedizen

My dreaming soul begins to sail

Its swelling canvas, clears for action

Toward remote skies.

And seeks a far horizon.

Your two eyes that neither sweetness

Your eyes where nothing can be seen

Nor bitterness hold

Either of sweet or bitter

Are two chilly gems mingled of

But gold and iron mix their sheen,

Iron and gold.

Seem frosty gems that glitter.

When you walk in rhythm, lovely

To see you rhythmically advancing

With abandonment,

Seems to my fancy fond

You seem to be swayed by a wand,

As if it were a serpent dancing

A dancing serpent.

Waved by the charmer's wand.

Your child's head under the burden

Under the languorous moods that weigh it,

Of your indolence

Your childish head bows down:

Sways as delicately as a

Like a young elephant's you sway it

Young elephant's,

With motions soft as down.

And your body bends and straightens

Your body leans upon the hips

Like a slender ship

Like a fine ship that Iaves

That, plunging and rolling, lets the

Its hull from side to side, and dips

Yards in water dip.

Its yards into the waves.

When, like a stream by thawing of

When, as by glaciers ground, the spate

Glaciers made replete,

Swells hissing from beneath,

The water of your mouth rises

The water of your mouth, elate,

Up to your teeth,

Rises between your teeth —

I drink a Bohemian wine,

It seems some old Bohemian vintage

Powerful and tart,

Triumphant, fierce, and tart,

A liquid sky that sows its stars

A liquid heaven that showers a mintage

Within my heart !

Of stars across my heart.