"Even When She Walks..."

by Charles Baudelaire

Even when she walks she seems to dance!

Her garments writhe and glisten like long snakes

obedient to the rhythm of the wands

by which a fakir wakens them to grace.

Like both the desert and the desert sky

insensible to human suffering,

and like the ocean's endless labyrinths

he shows her body with indifference.

Precious minerals are her polished eyes,

and in her strange symbolic nature

angel and sphinx unite,

where diamonds, gold, and steel dissolve into one light,

shining forever, useless as a star,

the sterile woman's icy majesty.