Desires

Poem by Guy De Maupassant Period 19th century

The dream for some would be to have wings,
To rise into space while uttering loud cries,
To seize between their fingers the supple swallows,
And to lose themselves, at evening, in the darkened skies.

Others would like to be able to crush chests
By closing upon them their two outstretched arms;
And, without bending their backs, seizing them by the nostrils,
To stop with a single blow runaway horses.

As for me; what I would love is carnal beauty:
I would like to be handsome like the ancient gods,
And that there might remain in hearts an eternal flame
At the distant memory of my radiant body.

I would like no woman to remain chaste for me,
To choose one today, take another tomorrow;
For I would like to gather love as I pass by,
As one gathers fruits by extending the hand.

They have, in biting into them, different savors;
These diverse aromas make them sweeter to us.
I would like to carry my wandering caresses
From brows with black hair to brows with auburn hair.

I would above all adore encounters in the streets,
Those ardors of the flesh that a glance unleashes,
The conquests of an hour at once vanished,
The kisses exchanged at the sole whim of chance.

I would like in the morning to see the brunette awaken
Who holds you strangled in the vise of her arms;
And, in the evening, to listen to the word spoken softly
By the blonde whose brow turns silver in the moonlight.

Then, without a trouble in the heart, without a biting regret,
To depart with a light foot toward another chimera.
— One must in those fruits put only the tooth:
One would find at the bottom a bitter savor.

Guy de Maupassant

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-desires-guy-de-maupassant/