To a flower

What do you want from me, dear little flower,

Friendly and charming souvenir

Half dead and half coy,

What makes you come up to me?

Enveloped in this style

You just made a long journey.

What did you see? What said the hand

That cut you from the bush?

Are you but dry grass

That has just finished dying?

Or does your breast, ready to flower again,

Enclose a thought?

Your flower, alas! has the white

Of sorrowful innocence;

But of fearful hope

Your leaf wears the color.

Do you have some message for me?

You can talk; I am discrete.

Is your greenery a secret?

Is your perfume a language?

If it is so, speak low

Mysterious messenger!

If it is not, do not answer;

Sleep on my heart, fresh and light!

I know too well that hand,

Full of grace and caprice,

Which with a thread of supple and thin string

Tied your pale chalice.

That hand, small flower,

Neither Phidias nor Praxiteles

Would have been able to find a sister to

Other than by taking Venus for model.

It is white, it is soft and beautiful,

Honnest, they say, and more still;

For he who knows how to grab it

It can open a treasure.

But it is wise, it is severe;

Some evil could befall me.

Little flower, let us fear its anger;

Say nothing, let me dream.