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From “Modern German Poems”
Translated by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky
HEAVY draperies, stiff and silvergrey; | |
| Busts of gods, that stare forth vacantly | |
| From blind eyes; rich convoluted clocks; | |
| Porcelain figures droll in shepherds’ smocks, | |
| Set on gilt-legged tables, marble-topped; | 5 |
| Ebon cats whose green eyes, never dropped, | |
| Blink, desirous, from the chimney-piece; | |
| Curtained small causeuses, as soft as fleece; | |
| Gay gilt chairs, and flowered tapestry; | |
| And upon a spinet, open, lies | 10 |
| That most exquisite of melodies— | |
| The gavotte, whose yellowed margins show, | |
| On the right-hand page, a bit below, | |
| The curved dent of a marquise’s nail. | |
| Her high-waisted little body sat | 15 |
| Here, the while she played, lovely and pale, | |
| With arched brows, large blue mendacious eyes, | |
| Powdered hair she never dared to pat, | |
| Before gentlemen who faithfully | |
| Held to an houri heaven upon earth; | 20 |
| Whose lace-ruffled wrists moved gracefully, | |
| Hovering nicely over satin vests | |
| To adjust frilled jabots on their breasts; | |
| Or who bent slim canes in dreamy mirth— | |
| Silver-knobbed, marked with enameled crests; | 25 |
| Who with oriental perfumes scented | |
| Delicate adventures, and took pains | |
| To dismiss with adroit tenderness | |
| The old god, buried without distress, | |
| As with languid graces, well contented, | 30 |
| They tripped round the grave where he must rest…. | |
| Who will open these locked gates to me, | |
| On this world of piquancies and pander, | |
| Madrigals and pale nuance and slander? | |
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