Over you, young virgin, broods
a holy shadow.
Nothing is more mysterious
and adorable and becoming
than your naked skin.
But you keep shut in your careful dress
and live aloof and far off
with your favours
not knowing who will reach you there.
Surely not me, who turns giddy
if I see you pass by
at such a proud distance,
with your hair loose
and your whole person guarded:
sleek tight-skinned creature
whose very breath becomes heavy
with an obscure rapture of flesh
that can hardly bear its fullness.
In your blood suffusing
your face like a burn
the laughter of the cosmos darts
as in the swallow's black eyes.
Your pupils are branded
with the sun that hives there.
Your lips are locked.
Your white hands are innocent
of the shameful sweats of contact.
And I think how your body
unbending and wanted
makes love despair
in a man's heart.

Still, someone will deflower you,
mouth of a wellspring.
Some undiscerning
sponge fisher
will find this rare pearl -
to him the grace and good luck
not to have searched for you
and not to know what you are
nor how to enjoy you
with the subtle knowledge
that offends a grudging God.
Yes, the brute will be
simple enough not to
die sooner than touch you.
And it's always like this.
You will let yourself be taken
only to see how the game goes,
and laugh together a while.
Like a flame fading in daylight,
in the starkness of truth
your promised mysteries
dissolve into nothing.
So much unconsumed
pleasure will slip you by !
You'll give yourself, you'll be lost
to the first one who charms you,
for a whim that will never guess why.
Time loves the joke
in its favour, not the cautious
will that lags and considers.
So it's youth
must keep the world rolling.
And the wisest man is just a boy
who grieves that he's grown up.