(Translated "from the French of Charles Pierre Baudelaire")

In times when Nature, filled with fervor limitless,
Conceived and brought to birth many a monstrous child,
I fain had dwelt anigh to some young giantess,
Even as lies a cat, voluptuous and mild,

At a queen's feet. Full happily I would have seen
Her soul and body burgeoning in dreadful games;
Divining if her heart behind the matutine
Mists of her eyes concealed a sun of somber flames.

I would have roamed her mighty rondures at mine ease;
Crawled on the thighward slope of her enormous knees;
Or when at whiles, by summer-swollen suns oppressed,

She laid along the field her weary hugeness down,
I would have slumbered in the shadow of one breast
As at a mountain's foot a still and peaceful town.