Page:Poems of Baudelaire Sturm.djvu/114

Rh

all the beauties in old prints vignetted,
 * Those worthless products of an outworn age,

With slippered feet and fingers castanetted,
 * The thirst of hearts like my heart can assuage.

To Gavarni, the poet of chloroses,
 * I leave his troupe of beauties sick and wan;

I cannot find among those pale, pale roses
 * The red ideal mine eyes would gaze upon.

Lady Macbeth, the lovely star of crime, The Greek poet's dream born in a northern clime—
 * Ah, she could quench my dark heart's deep desiring;

Or Michelangelo's dark daughter Night,
 * In a strange posture dreamily admiring

Your beauty fashioned for a giant's delight!