On a warm autumn evening, if I shut both eyes
And breathe the smell of heat from your warm breast,
I see unfolding a long happy coast
That endless sun has burnt into a daze.
An island state of sloth, where nature grows
The strangest trees, and fruits of delicate taste;
where mean are lean and strong, and women rest
Their eyes on one with startling openness.
Following your smell toward this charming zone,
I see a harbour full of masts and sails
Still shaken from the ocean waves and winds,
And then the scent of verdant tamarinds
Comes wafting to my heart and swells my nostrils,
Mixed with the shanties of the deep-sea men.
Charles Baudelaire translated by Alistair Elliot
|