IMAGE
x
Poor faun, who must expire,
Reflect me in your pupils.
Take my memory to dance
For my dark immortals.
x
Go, and tell those pensive dead
For whom my pranks were a joy so rare,
I dream of them beneath the yews
Where I walk, petite and fair.
x
Describe my air, my brow so vivid,
Bound by woollen bandelettes;
How firm my mouth is, fingers plump
And redolent of grass and privet.
x
Tell them of my weightless moves
As various as the shadow play
That teeters through the living leaves
Innumerable in pearmen’s groves.
x
You can include the lazy look
That slows my eyelids, almost sullen,
How I do my evening dance
In a dress the breeze has swollen.
x
Whisper to them how I nap,
My bare arms folded underneath
My cheek, my skin with hint of gold
Admitting veins of violet.
x
Say how sweet it is to see
My hair as blue as plums can be
And how each foot reflects the other,
How the moon invades each eye.
x
And how, when dusk weighs sad and gloomy,
Cast down by the cool of springs
And aching for them and their love,
In vain I pull their shadows to me.
X
Comtesse Anna de Noailles (1876-1933)
Painting by Philip de Lazlo, completed 1913. Translation by Anthony Howell
