A poem by Baudelaire
A une passante
La rue assourdissante autour de moi hurlait.
Longue, mince, en grand deuil, douleur majestueuse,
Une femme passa, d'une main fastueuse
Soulevant, balancant le feston et l'ourlet;

Agile et noble, avec sa jambe de statue.
Moi, je buvais, crispe comme un extravagant,
Dans son oeil, ciel livide ou germe l'ouragan,
La douceur qui fascine et le plaisir qui tue.

Un eclair .. puis la nuit! - Fugitive beaute
Dont le regard m'a fait soudainement renaitre,
Ne te verrai-je plus que dans l'eternite?

Ailleurs, bien loin d'ici! trop tard!
jamais peut-etre!
Car j'ignore ou tu fuis, tu ne sais ou je vais,
O toi que j'eusse aimee, o toi qui le savais!

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To A Woman Passerby
The deafening street howled around me.
Tall, thin, in full mourning - majestic sorrow -
A woman passed, with a stately hand
Lifting and swinging her widow's reeds and her hem,

Agile and noble, with the foot of a statue.
As for myself, clenched like a madman, I drank
From her eyes - pale sky giving birth to the hurricane -
Sweetness that mesmerizes and pleasure that kills.

A bolt of lightning ... Then night! Fugitive beauty
Whose glance suddenly brought me back to life,
Will I see you again only in eternity?

Somewhere else, so far from here! Too late! Never, perhaps!
For I do not know where you are fleeing, you do not know where I am going,
Oh you whom I could have loved, oh you who knew this!