The Giantess

A poem by Charles Baudelaire

In times when madcap Nature in her verve
Conceived each day a hatch of monstrous spawn,
I might have lived near some young giantess,
Like a voluptuous cat before a queen

To watch her body tlower with her soul,
And grow up freely in her dreadful play;
To guess about a passion's sombre tlame
Bom in the mists that swim within her eyes.

At leisure to explore her mighty forms;
To climb the slopes of her enormous knees,
And sometimes, when the summer's tainted suns

Had lain her out across the countryside,
To drowse in nonchalance below her breast,
Like a calm village in the mountain's shade.