Intermezzo

TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

Nini Patte-en-l’Air (Casino de Paris’)

x

The gold Casino’s Spring parterre

Flowers with the Spring, this golden week;

Glady, Toloche, Valtesse, are there;

But all eyes turn as one to seek

The drawers of Nini Patte-en-l’air.

*

Surprising, sunset-coloured lace,

In billowy clouds of gold and red,

They whirl and flash before one’s face;

The little heel above her head

Points an ironical grimace.

*

And mark the experimental eyes,

The naughty eloquence of feet,

The appeal of subtly quivering thighs,

The insinuations indiscreet

Of pirouetting draperies.

*

What exquisite indecency,

Select, supreme, severe, an art!

The art of knowing how to be

Part lewd, aesthetical in part,

And fin-de-siecle essentially.

*

The Maenad of the Decadence,

Collectedly extravagant,

Her learned fury wakes the sense

That, fainting, needs for excitant

This science of concupiscence.

*

ARTHUR SYMONS (Paris, May 14, 1892)

Symons has left this out of his Collected Poems. A shame as it is one of his best. Was it too risque?