THE JEWELS

[krasnaia_gotika]

The beloved was naked, and knowing my heart,
had retained only her vibrant jewels,
whose pageantry gave to her a rich and conquering air
such as belonged, on langorous days, to Moorish concubines.

This world radiant of metal and rock
ravishes me, and when its bright
and mocking noise leaps in dance, I madly love
those things in which sound is mixed with light.

She lay thus, abandoned to love,
and from the height of the couch, smiled
carelessly at my ardor that rose, deep and fragrant as the sea,
mounting toward her as toward a pale cliff.

Eyeing me like a tamed tiger,
she posed with a vague and dreamy air,
and candor, being joined to shamelessness,
gave fresh charm to all her metamorphoses.

Polished with oil, undulant like a swan,
arm and leg, thigh and loins
passed before my serene and clairvoyant eyes;
while her belly and breasts, fruits of my vine,

Hovered, more seductive than Fallen Angels,
to trouble the repose in which my soul lay,
and to lure it from the crystal rock where,
calm and solitary, it had been enthroned.

I thought I saw the hips of Antiope
joined by a new design to a boyish torso,
so that her figure thrust forth its pelvis--
how superb the rouge on this brown and tawny complexion!

The lamp had resigned itself to dying.
The hearth alone illuminated the room,
and each time it heaved forth a flaming sigh,
flooded her amber skin with blood!