To a Malabar Woman

Your feet are as slender as your hands and your hips 

Are broad; they'd make the fairest white woman jealous; 

To the pensive artist your body's sweet and dear; 

Your wide, velvety eyes are darker than your skin.

In the hot blue country where your God had you born 

It is your task to light the pipe of your master, 

To keep the flasks filled with cool water and perfumes, 

To drive far from his bed the roving mosquitoes, 

And as soon as morning makes the plane-trees sing, to 

Buy pineapples and bananas at the bazaar. 

All day long your bare feet follow your whims, 

And, very low, you hum old, unknown melodies; 

And when evening in his scarlet cloak descends, 

You stretch out quietly upon a mat and there 

Your drifting dreams are full of humming-birds and are 

Like you, always pleasant and adorned with flowers.

Why, happy child, do you wish to see France, 

That over-peopled country which suffering mows down, 

And entrusting your life to the strong arms of sailors, 

Bid a last farewell to your dear tamarinds? 

You, half-dressed in filmy muslins, 

Shivering over there in the snow and the hail, 

How you would weep for your free, pleasant leisure, if, 

With a brutal corset imprisoning your flanks, 

You had to glean your supper in our muddy streets 

And sell the fragrance of your exotic charms, 

With pensive eye, following in our dirty fogs 

The sprawling phantoms of the absent coco palms!