The Favours of the Moon

The Moon, who is caprice itself, looked in through the window
when you lay asleep in your cradle, and said inwardly: "This is
a child after my own soul."

And she came softly down the staircase of the clouds, and
passed noiselessly through the window-pane. Then she laid
herself upon you with the supple tenderness of a mother, and
she left her colours upon your face. That is why your eyes are
green and your cheeks extraordinarily pale. It was when you
looked at her, that your pupils widened so strangely; and she
clasped her arms so tenderly about your throat that ever since
you have had the longing for tears.

Nevertheless, in the flood of her joy, the Moon filled the room
like a phosphoric atmosphere, like a luminous poison; and all
this living light thought and said: "My kiss shall be upon you
for ever. You shall be beautiful as I am beautiful. You shall
love that which I love and that by which I am loved: water and
clouds, night and silence; the vast green sea; the formless and
multiform water; the place where you shall never be; the lover
whom you shall never know; unnatural flowers; odours which make
men drunk; the cats that languish upon pianos and sob like
women, with hoarse sweet voices!

"And you shall be loved by my lovers, courted by my courtiers.
You shall be the queen of men who have green eyes, and whose
throats I have clasped by night in my caresses; of those that
love the sea, the vast tumultuous green sea, formless and
multiform water, the place where they are not, the woman whom
they know not, the ominous flowers that are like the censers
of an unknown rite, the odours that trouble the will, and the
savage and voluptuous beasts that are the emblems of their
folly."

And that is why, accursed dear spoilt child, I lie now at
your feet, seeking to find in you the image of the fearful
goddess, the fateful godmother, the poisonous nurse of all the
moonstruck of the world.

End of title

The Favours of the Moon

Charles Pierre Baudelaire

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