The Giantess

From the French of Charles Baudelaire
Time was when Nature, monstrously enraptured,
Brought giant children forth: O would that I
Had then by some young giantess been captured,
Before her feet in feline bliss to lie!

I would have watched her body and her mind
Flower and strengthen in her awful play;
And through her eyes' cool mists would have divined
How dark the flame that in her bosom lay;

Traversed at leisure all her splendid form,
Around her knees' enormous curve have crept;
And when she lay, on sultry summer morn,
Weary, across the land, I would have slept

At ease beneath the shadow of her breasts
As at a mountain's foot a hamlet rests.

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