The Lady in Stone, Poem by Charles Cros

To Catulle Mendès.

On this tomb’s lid
She sleeps. The obscure artist
Who carved her saw beauty
With nothing sad.

Joining her hands, eyes happy
Beneath the veil of her eyelids,
She has amorous dreams
In her prayers.

Under the heavy folds of the garment,
The flesh appears rebellious,
Not completely forgetting
That she was beautiful.

Brought back over the icy breast,
The arms, in narrow sleeves,
Dream of the lover embraced
By their white chains.

The greyhound, as in other times
Waiting for a caress,
Sleeps curled against the cold feet
Of his mistress.

*
All the past lives again. I see
The lordly splendors.
The coats of arms and the shields
Of the great halls.

The high wooden ceilings, bordered
With emblematic sculptures,
The hunts, the tournaments embroidered
On the hangings.

In her armchair, with no care
For the people who fill the room,
Of what can she be dreaming thus,
The chatelaine?

Her eyes, where at moments shine
The inner prides,
Read melancholically
A book of hours.

When a woman dreams thus
Proud of her rare beauty,
It is some merciless drama
That is preparing.

Perhaps in time, in full flower,
This one was laid in the earth.
Though implacable, the sorrow
Was austere.

The lover did not see it tarnish,
At the breath of the unfaithful one,
The purity of the memory
He had of her.

Death has not reached beauty.
The perverse flesh is killed,
But the form is, on a tomb,
Perpetuated.

Charles Cros

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-the-lady-in-stone-charles-cros/