To Madame Aguado

Column made of sapphire, with arabesques embroidered,

Reappear! The wood doves fly off from their nest;

From your azure headband to your feet of granite

Uncoils in long folds the purple of Judea.

If you see Benares, on his river elbowed,

Take off with your bow your golden girdle tawny

For I am the vulture winged above Patani

And white butterflies have all the sea quite flooded.

Lanassa! set your veil afloat upon the waves!

Let go flowers of purple to the stream that laves.

The snowfall of Cathay drops on the Atlantic.

All this while the priestess with a face vermilion

Is asleep below the archway of the sun,

And nothing has disturbed severe the portico.

Gérard de Nerval