Page:Poems and Baudelaire Flowers.djvu/49

Rh flowing o’er the shoulders bare!
 * O curls! O perfume sweet beyond belief!

Here in this bower to people the night air With all the memories sleeping in this hair
 * I long to shake it like a handkerchief!

Fierce Afric and the languorous Orient,
 * All a vast world, distant, nay, almost dead,

Within this aromatic wood is pent; My soul beloved floats upon thy scent
 * As other souls have music for a bed.

I will go out where full-veined man and tree
 * Swoon daylong in the sultry summer’s heat—

Strong tresses be the barque which carries me: Thou boldest a bright dream, O ebon sea,
 * Of sails, flames, rowers, on a splendid fleet;

A harbour where through every sense are rolled
 * Vast sweeping waves of perfume, sound, and hue,

Where vessels gliding over moire and gold Stretch up great arms to heaven to enfold
 * The glory of the everlasting blue.

There waits for me delicious drunkenness
 * In this dark sea which holds those other seas;

My spirit in the gentle main’s caress Shall know once more the old rich idleness,
 * Infinite rockings of embalmèd ease.