Spinster, The

Sitting, at the casement's blue the spinster
Where the song-filled garden nods;
The ancient snoring wheel has made her tipsy.

Weary, azure having drunken, of spinning the tender
Hairs, at her fingers so feeble evasive,
She slumbers, and her little head droops.

A bush and pure air make a living fountain
That hung in daylight, deliciously waters
With a waste of flowers the garden of the idler.

A stem, where the wandering wind reposes,
Curves the vain salute of its starry grace,
Magnificently dedicating, to the old wheel, its rose.

But the sleeper spins an isolate wool;
Mysteriously the frail shadow plaits
The thread unto of her long fingers sleeping, spun.

The dream winds up with a carelessness
Angelical, and ceaseless, on the sweet believing spindle,
The hairs undulate under the caresses...

Behind so many flowers, the azure hides,
Spinster of foliage and light girded:
The green sky entire dies. The last tree burns.

Your sister, the great rose where smiles a saint,
Perfumes your vague brow in the wind of her breath
Innocent, and you think you languish... you are extinguished

At the casement's blue where you spun the wool.

Paul Val?ry, tr. C.M.