To a Red-Haired Beggar Girl, Poem by Charles Baudelaire

White girl with the red hair,
Whose dress through its tears
Lets poverty be seen
And beauty too,

For me, a puny poet,
Your young and sickly body,
Covered with freckles,
Has its own sweetness.

You wear more gallantly
Than a queen of romance
Her velvet buskins
Your heavy clogs.

Instead of a rag too short,
May a superb court gown
Trail in long and rustling folds
Over your heels;

In place of your torn stockings,
May, for the eyes of rakes,
On your leg a golden dagger
Still glitter;

May loose-tied ribbons
Reveal for our sins
Your two lovely breasts, radiant
As eyes;

May, to undress you,
Your arms have to be implored
And chase away with playful blows
The mischievous fingers,

Pearls of the purest water,
Sonnets of master Belleau
By your gallants, held in chains,
Ceaselessly offered,

A valetaille of rhymesters
Dedicating their first fruits to you
And gazing at your shoe
Beneath the stairway,

Many a page smitten by chance,
Many a lord and many a Ronsard
Would spy, for their delight,
Your fresh little den!

You would count in your beds
More kisses than lilies
And would bring under your laws
More than one Valois!

– Yet you go begging
Some old scrap lying
At the door of some Véfour
On a street corner;

You go eyeing from under your lashes
Trinkets worth twenty-nine sous
Which I cannot, oh! forgive me!
Make you a gift of.

Go then! with no other ornament,
Perfume, pearls, diamond,
Than your thin nakedness,
O my beauty!

Charles Baudelaire

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-to-a-red-haired-beggar-girl-charles-baudelaire/