Page:Poems and Baudelaire Flowers.djvu/80

76 lie like pensive cattle on the sands,
 * And as their gaze to the far sea’s edge clings,

Their feet which twine, and their enclaspèd hands
 * Suffer sweet swoons and bitter shudderings.

But some, enamoured of long converse, stray
 * Where the streams wander through the coppices,

Spell out the loves of timid childhood’s day,
 * And carve the green wood of the little trees.

Others like sisters wander slow and grave
 * Across the rocks where phantom shapes flit dim,

Where Anthony saw, surging wave on wave,
 * The naked purple breasts which tempted him.

Some there are who, by crumbling torches’ light
 * In the dumb gulfs of pagan caverns deep,

Pray thee to put their fever-throes to flight,
 * Bacchus! who drownest old remorse in sleep.

And others, fain of scapularies, roam
 * With a long whip beneath their garments’ fold,

And in lone woods at midnight mingle foam
 * Of joy with cries of anguish manifold.

O virgins, demons, monsters, martyrs! ye
 * Who scorn reality through all the years;

Soiled holy ones who seek infinity
 * So full of cries and, ah! so full of tears!