Like pensive cattle, lying on the sands, <br />they turn their eyes towards the sea’s far hills, <br />and, feet searching each other’s, touching hands, <br />know sweet languor and the bitterest thrills. <br />Some, where the stream babbles, deep in the woods, <br />their hearts enamoured of long intimacies, <br />go spelling out the loves of their own girlhoods, <br />and carving the green bark of young trees. <br />Others, like Sisters, walk, gravely and slow, <br />among the rocks, full of apparitions, <br />where Saint Anthony saw, like lava flows, <br />the bared crimson breasts of his temptations. <br />There are those, in the melting candle’s glimmer, <br />who in mute hollows of caves still pagan, <br />call on you to relieve their groaning fever, <br />O Bacchus, to soothe the remorse of the ancients! <br />And others, whose throats love scapularies, <br />who, hiding whips under their long vestment, <br />in the sombre groves of the night, solitaries, <br />blend the sweats of joy with the tears of torment. <br />O virgins, o demons, o monsters, o martyrs, <br />great spirits, despisers of reality, <br />now full of cries, now full of tears, <br />pious and lustful, seeking infinity, <br />you, whom my soul has pursued to your hell, <br />poor sisters, I adore you as much as I weep, <br />for your dismal sufferings, thirsts that swell, <br />and the vessels of love, where your great hearts steep!<br /><br />Charles Baudelaire<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/femmes-damn-es/