To a Creole Lady

by Charles Baudelaire

I've known, in scented lands that suns caress,

Under a canopy of reddened trees,

Where palms deluge the eyes with laziness,

A Creole lady's charms that no one sees.

Pale-hued and warm, this brown-skinned sorceress

Bears in her head fine airs and dignities;

A huntress strides in her tall slenderness,

And her smile's quiet and her gaze at ease.

If ever you go where true glories are,

Madame, beside the Seine or the green Loire,

Your beauty our old houses might well prize,

And in some sheltered shady haunt you'd start

A thousand sonnets in each poet's heart,

Subdued more than your slaves by your large eyes.