To a Creole Lady

In the perfumed land by the sun caressed,

I’ve known, beneath a canopy of purple trees

And palms whence rains upon the eyes all idleness,

A Creole lady whose charms are not as familiar as these.

Her complexion is pale and warm; the brownhaired enchantress

Has about her neck airs that are mannered nobly;

She walks tall and svelte as a very huntress,

Her eyes are assured and her smile is full of ease.

Were you to go, Madame, unto the land of true glory,

Upon the banks of the Seine or of the springing Loire,

A beauty worthy of adorning antique manors,

You would cause, in the shelter of shadowy retreats,

A thousand sonnets to sprout within the heart of poets,

Whom your great eyes would make more docile than your coloreds.

Charles Baudelaire