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Poor faun, who must expire,

Reflect me in your pupils.

Take my memory to dance

For my dark immortals.

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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 near.

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Describe my air, my brow so vivid,

Bound by woollen bandelettes;

How firm my mouth is, fingers plump

And redolent of grass and privet.

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Tell them of my weightless moves

As various as the shadow play

That teeters through the living leaves

Innumerable in pearmen’s groves.

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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.

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Whisper to them how I nap,

My bare arms folded underneath

My cheek, my skin with hint of gold

Admitting veins of violet.

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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.

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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.

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Comtesse Anna de Noailles (1876-1933)

Painting by Philip de Lazlo, completed 1913. Version by Anthony Howell

Had she been reading Andrew Marvell? The Nymph Complaining for the death of her Faun.

The original is below:

L’image

See also Meandering through La Belle Epoch.