The Vain Dancers

They who are lightsome flowers now are come,

Golden figurines and beauties not buxom

Where a feeble moon iridesces... They are here

Tuneful to flee into the wood bright and clear.

Of mallows and irises and nocturnal roses

Are the night graces under their dances disclosed.

What veiled perfumes their golden fingers dispense!

But the sweet azure is bare in this dead copse

And some thin water gleams a bit, rested

Like an antique dewdrop’s pallid treasure

Whence in flower rises silence... and here

Tuneful to flee into the wood bright and clear.

To loved calyxes their hands are gracious;

A little moonlight sleeps on their lips pious

And their marvelous arms with drowsy gestures

Love to undo beneath the friendly myrtles

Their wild bonds and their caresses... But some,

Less captive to the rhythm and harps’ far strum,

Go with subtle steps to the lake buried

To drink from lilies frail water where sleeps pure oblivion.

Paul Valéry