They say to me, your eyes, clear as crystal:

Your eyes like crystal ask me, clear and mute,

"For you, bizarre lover, what is my merit then?"

"in me, strange lover, what do you admire?"

— Be charming and be still! My heart, which all things irk,

Be lovely: hush: my heart, whom all things tire

Except the candor of the animals of old,

Except the candour of the primal brute,

Does not wish to reveal its black secret to you,

Would hide from you the secret burning it

Whose lulling hands invite me to long sleep,

And its black legend written out in fire,

Nor its somber legend written with flame.

O soother of the sleep that I respire!

I hate passion; intelligence makes me suffer!

Passion I hate, and I am hurt by wit.

Let us love each other sweetly. Tenebrous Love,

Let us love gently. In his lair laid low,

Ambushed in his shelter, stretches his fatal bow.

Ambushed in shades, Love strings his fatal bow.

I know all the weapons of his old arsenal:

I know his ancient arsenal complete,

Crime, horror, and madness! — pale marguerite!

Crime, horror, lunacy — O my pale daisy!

Are you not, like me, an autumnal sun,

Are we not suns in Autumn, silver-hazy,

O my Marguerite, so white and so cold?

O my so white, so snow-cold Marguerite?