Allégorie

The month of May is upon us and now I watch this year's class undergo the same rites that I myself endured. It's strange. It's almost as if time has stood still for this past year and that only now am I actually thinking that I can move forward. I have been out of every loop I can possibly think of and I refuse to believe that this is a bad thing. I have focus, I have my love, I have a comfortable existence. Nine poems left to translate before this project is completed. Maybe I will contemplate it all in retrospect; maybe I won't think of it again after I post my very last. Who knows, who cares. I have no audience and that's fine.

Allegory
She is a beautiful woman with a rich neckline,
Who lets her hair drag in her wine,
The claws of love, the poisons of dives,
All slide and become dull on the granite of her skin,
She laughs at Death and taunts Debauchery,
These monsters whose hands, which always scratch and cut,
In their destructive games have yet respected
The rude majesty of this firm and upright body.
She walks like a goddess and reposes like a sultan;
She has the Muslim’s faith in pleasure,
And into her open arms, that her breasts fill,
She calls the race of humans with her eyes.
She believes, she knows, that virgin infertile
And yet necessary to the tread of the world,
That the beauty of body is a sublime gift
Which extracts pardon of all infamy.
She knows not of Hell or Purgatory
And when the hour comes to enter into the black Night
She will look at the face of Death
Like a newborn, —without hatred and without remorse.

Allégorie
C'est une femme belle et de riche encolure,
Qui laisse dans son vin traîner sa chevelure.
Les griffes de l'amour, les poisons du tripot,
Tout glisse et tout s'émousse au granit de sa peau.
Elle rit à la Mort et nargue la Débauche,
Ces monstres dont la main, qui toujours gratte et fauche,
Dans ses jeux destructeurs a pourtant respecté
De ce corps ferme et droit la rude majesté.
Elle marche en déesse et repose en sultane;
Elle a dans le plaisir la foi mahométane,
Et dans ses bras ouverts, que remplissent ses seins,
Elle appelle des yeux la race des humains.
Elle croit, elle sait, cette vierge inféconde
Et pourtant nécessaire à la marche du monde,
Que la beauté du corps est un sublime don
Qui de toute infamie arrache le pardon.
Elle ignore l'Enfer comme le Purgatoire,
Et quand l'heure viendra d'entrer dans la Nuit noire
Elle regardera la face de la Mort,
Ainsi qu'un nouveau-né, — sans haine et sans remords.
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