L'Amour Du Mensonge. Translations. After Charles Baudelaire.

When I behold thee, O my indolent love,         To the sound of ringing brazen melodies,     Through garish halls harmoniously move,         Scattering a scornful light from languid eyes;     When I see, smitten by the blazing lights,         Thy pale front, beauteous in its bloodless glow     As the faint fires that deck the Northern nights,         And eyes that draw me wheresoe'er I go;     I say, She is fair, too coldly strange for speech;         A crown of memories, her calm brow above,     Shines; and her heart is like a bruised red peach,         Ripe as her body for intelligent love.     Art thou late fruit of spicy savour and scent?         A funeral vase awaiting tearful showers?     An Eastern odour, waste and oasis blent?         A silken cushion or a bank of flowers?     I know there are eyes of melancholy sheen         To which no passionate secrets e'er were given;     Shrines where no god or saint has ever been,         As deep and empty as the vault of Heaven.     But what care I if this be all pretence?         'Twill serve a heart that seeks for truth no more.     All one thy folly or indifference, -         Hail, lovely mask, thy beauty I adore!