I love to watch, while you are lazing,

Indolent darling, how I love

Your skin. It iridesces

To see the skin

Like silk or satin, smoothly-glazing

Of your body so beautiful

The light that it caresses.

Shimmer like silk!

Under your tresses dark and deep

Upon your heavy head of hair

Where acrid perfumes drown,

With its acrid scents,

A fragrant sea whose breakers sweep

Adventurous, odorant sea

In mazes blue or brown,

With blue and brown waves,

My soul, a ship, to the attraction

Like a vessel that awakens

Of breezes that bedizen

To the morning wind,

Its swelling canvas, clears for action

My dreamy soul sets sail

And seeks a far horizon.

For a distant sky.

Your eyes where nothing can be seen

Your eyes where nothing is revealed

Either of sweet or bitter

Of bitter or sweet,

But gold and iron mix their sheen,

Are two cold jewels where are mingled

Seem frosty gems that glitter.

Iron and gold.

To see you rhythmically advancing

To see you walking in cadence

Seems to my fancy fond

With fine abandon,

As if it were a serpent dancing

One would say a snake which dances

Waved by the charmer's wand.

On the end of a staff.

Under the languorous moods that weigh it,

Under the weight of indolence

Your childish head bows down:

Your child-like head sways

Like a young elephant's you sway it

Gently to and fro like the head

With motions soft as down.

Of a young elephant,

Your body leans upon the hips

And your body stretches and leans

Like a fine ship that Iaves

Like a slender ship

Its hull from side to side, and dips

That rolls from side to side and dips

Its yards into the waves.

Its yards in the sea.

When, as by glaciers ground, the spate

Like a stream swollen by the thaw

Swells hissing from beneath,

Of rumbling glaciers,

The water of your mouth, elate,

When the water of your mouth rises

Rises between your teeth —

To the edge of your teeth,

It seems some old Bohemian vintage

It seems I drink Bohemian wine,

Triumphant, fierce, and tart,

Bitter and conquering,

A liquid heaven that showers a mintage

A liquid sky that scatters

Of stars across my heart.

Stars in my heart!