The Offended Moon

O Moon that was adored discreetly by our fathers,

Atop blue lands where, radiant seraglio,

The stars in all their trim and fresh gear follow you,

My old Cynthia, lamp of our foregathers,

Do you see the lovers in low beds prosperous,

With their mouths asleep showing enamel new?

The poet beating his brow against his travail heu?

Or beneath dry leaves coupling any vipers?

Beneath your yellow domino, with secret step,

Will you, as formerly, from sundown unto sunup,

Kiss Endymion his grace of yesteryears?

“—I see your mother, child of this age grown meager,

Who unto her mirror tilts a weighty heap of years,

And artistically plasters the breast that fed you eager!”

Charles Baudelaire