To a Red-Headed Beggar Maid

Pale red-headed girl,

whose ragged dress shows

her beauty

and her poverty,

for me, a weakling poet,

your clumsy,

be-freckled young body

has its sweetness.

You wear your heavy clogs

more gallantly

than a queen in a novel

wears her velvet buskins.

Instead of too-short rags,

a superb court gown with rustling folds

should hang down

on your heels.

Instead of torn stockings,

a golden dagger should glisten

on your leg to fill the eyes

of the roués.

Loose knots should unveil,

for our sins,

your two beautiful breasts,

radiant as eyes.

Your arms should

have to be begged

to undress you

and beat off elven fingers.

Pearls of the first water,

sonnets by Belleau,

offered unceasingly by your suitors

clamped in irons.

Flunkeys, rhymesters,

dedicating their first fruits

to you and contemplating your shoe

under the stair,

many a page in love by chance,

many a lord, many a Ronsard,

would pay the price

of your pleasures!

You would have more kisses

than lilies in your bed

and would submit more than one Valois

to your authority.

But you beg

for a few scraps

on the doorstep

of some corner Véfour.

You eye

29-sou jewelry,

and I can't (forgive me!)

even give you that.

Go, then, with no other ornament,

perfume, pearls or diamond

than your thin nudity,

oh my beauty!