Song Of The Afternoon

Although your wayward brows     Give you a curious air     Angelic not at all,     Witch of the tempting stare,     I love you with a passion     Terrible and odd,     With the obeisance     Of priest to golden god.     The desert and the woods     Embalm your heavy hair;     Your head takes attitudes     Mysterious and rare.     A censer's faint perfume     Prowls along your skin;     You charm as evening charms,     Warm and shadowy Nymph.     Ah! strongest potions stir me     Less than your idleness,     And you can make the dead     Revive with your caress!     Your hips are amorous     Of back and breasts and thighs,     And ravished by your pose     Are cushions where you lie.     Sometimes to appease     A rage that comes in fits,     Serious one, you squander     Bites within the kiss;     You wound me, my brunette,     With ever-mocking smile,     Then sweetly, like the moon,     Gaze on my heart a while.     Under your satin shoes,     Your charming silken feet,     I place myself, my joy,     My genius and my fate,     My soul, mended by you,     By you, color and light,     Explosion of heat     In my Siberian night!