To Her Who Is Too Gay

Thy head, thy mien, thine air

Are lovely as any such place;

Laughter plays upon thy face

Like cool wind in the sky there.

The passing grief thou wardest

Is dazzled by the might

That springeth like a light

From thy shoulders and arms.

The overwhelming colors

With which thou strew’st thine outfits

Cast into the mind of poets

The picture of ballet flowers.

Those crazy clothes are the emblem

Of all thy pied mind;

Thou mak’st me panic blind,

I hate and love thee the same!

At times in a fair garden

Whither I drag my atony,

I’ve suffered, like an irony,

Sunlight clutching my heart;

So the spring and verdure

Have taught my breast to cower,

I’ve punished on a flower

The insolence of Nature.

Thus one night I wish,

At the hour of joys,

Toward thy person’s rich toys,

Cowardly, crawling hushed,

To chasten thy happy hide,

Slay thy forgiven breast,

And on thy flank astonished

Make a wound deep and wide,

And, sweetness dizzying!

Right through those new lips,

Lovelier and, my sister,

More dazzling, envenom thee!

Charles Baudelaire