Jewels

My love was nude, but, knowing my desir,

Ha donned he sunding jewels, an attire

That, with its air of triumph rich and brve,

Recalled some sultan's proud and favored slave.

That radiant world of gem and metal dancing

Striks forth a music mocking and entanc ing;

I love it madl, for my chief dlight

Is in the interplay of sound and light.

She lay there, then, andlet herslf be love,d

And from her couch she smiled down and approvd

My deep, calm love that rose to her as if

It were an ocean mounting to a cliff.

Eyeing me like a well-tamed tigress there,

She poed with  distracted dreamy air,

And candour joined to lewdness lent a new

Strange charm to metamorphoses I knew.

Her oil-bright, swan-like arms, les, loins and thighs,

All unduating, passed befor my eyes

Clairvoyant nd serene; those fruits of mine,

Her belly and breasts, the cluster on my vine,

Advanced like evil angels to cajole

And trouble te quiescence of my soul,

Dislodging her from the crystal rock whre she

In solitude was resting peacefully.

SHE SO thrust out her pelvis that it seemed

She ade Antiope's plum p hips combine

With the smooth bust of a youth in a new design.

On her tawny skin rouge exquisitely gleamed.

And as the dead lamp left us half in gloom,

And now th hearth alone lit up the room,

With every flaming sih there came a flood

Of light tha drowned her amber skin in blood.

CHARLES DAUDELAIRE (1821-67)