Completamente
Exiliado de mis deseos
Apasionadamente
Te sigo con mis ojos.
Mujer de un paraíso presuntuoso
El mundo te mira
Porque eres diferente.
Amorosamente
Mi corazón ha cruzado el himen de tu cielo
Conscientemente
Has mirado desde arriba las chispas de mi fuego.
Carrément
Éloigné de mes vœux
Passionnément
Je te suis des yeux.
Femme d’un paradis présomptueux
Tout le monde qui te regarde
Parce que tu prends tes gardes.
Amoureusement
Mon cœur a traversé le voile de tes cieux
Consciemment
Tu as toisé les étincelles de mon feu.
Tu es jolie comme un diamant précieux
Comme une fleur d’un printemps pas encore vieux
Oh ! Qui suis-je pour viser un sourire si délicieux ?
Completely
Exiled from my wishes
Passionately
I follow you with my eyes.
Woman of a presumptuous paradise
Everyone is staring at you
Because you take your guard.
Lovingly
My heart has crossed the hymen of your skies
Consciously
You have looked down on the sparks of my fire.
You are pretty like a precious diamond
Like a flower of a spring not yet old
Oh! Who am I to aim for such a delicious smile?
Yellow dust on a bumble
bee's wing,
Grey lights in a woman's
asking eyes,
Red ruins in the changing
sunset embers:
I take you and pile high
the memories.
Death will break her claws
on some I keep.
Two blind men met. Said one: "This earth
Has been a blackout from my birth.
Through darkness I have groped my way,
Forlorn, unknowing night from day.
But you - though War destroyed your sight,
Still have your memories of Light,
And to allay your present pain
Can live your golden youth again."
Then said the second: "Aye, it's true,
It must seem magical to you
To know the shape of things that are,
A women's lips, a rose, a star.
But therein lies the hell of it;
Better my eyes had never lit
I know two women, and one is chaste
And cold as the snows on a winters waste,
Stainless ever I act and thought
(As a man, born dumb, in speech errs not) .
But she has malice toward her kind,
A cruel tongue and a jealous mind.
Void of pity and full of greed,
She judges the world by her narrow creed;
A brewer of quarrels, a breeder of hate,
Yet she holds the key to ‘Society’s’ Gate.
The other woman, with heart of flame,
Went mad for a love that marred her name:
And out of the grave of her murdered faith
There was a man, it was said one time,
Who went astray in his youthful prime.
Can the brain keep cool and the heart keep quiet
When the blood is a river that’s running riot?
And boys will be boys the old folks say,
And the man is better who’s had his day.
The sinner reformed; and the preacher told
Of the prodigal son who came back to the fold.
And Christian people threw open the door,
With a warmer welcome than ever before.
Wealth and honour were his to command,
And a spotless woman gave him her hand.
Strange that the self’s continuum should outlast
The Virgin, Aphrodite, and the Mourning Mother,
All loves and griefs, successive deities
That hold their kingdom in the human breast.
Abandoned by the gods, woman with an ageing body
That half remembers the Annunciation
The passion and the travail and the grief
That wore the mask of my humanity,
I marvel at the soul’s indifference.
For in her theatre the play is done,
The tears are shed; the actors, the immortals
A woman I have never seen before
Steps from the darkness of her town-house door
At just that crux of time when she is made
So beautiful that she or time must fade.
What use to claim that as she tugs her gloves
A phantom heraldry of all the loves
Blares from the lintel? That the staggered sun
Forgets, in his confusion, how to run?
Still, nothing changes as her perfect feet
Click down the walk that issues in the street,
Leaving the stations of her body there
