You understand me: I am a middling creature,
Not good, nor very bad, peaceable, a bit sly.
I hate heavy perfumes, or a sudden outcry,
And grey I prize dearer than scarlet or ochre.

 
I love the fading day, which bit by bit dies down,
A fire, the closed-in intimacy of a chamber
Where the lamps, dimming their panes of yellow amber,
Redden the old bronze and tinge with blue the freestone.

 
My eyes on the carpet, which is smoother than sand,
Idly I evoke the shores of golden peas, [1]
Where the brightness of lovely times long past still drifts…
And yet, in spite of this, I bear the sinner’s brand.

 
See: I am at the age when the virgin yields her hand
To the man her weakness makes her seek out and dread,
And I have not chosen a comrade for the road,
Because you appeared at a place where the path turned.

 
On the hills the hyacinth was bleeding crimson, [2]
You were in a dream, and Eros walked beside you…
I am a woman, I have no right to beauty.
They have condemned me to the ugliness of men.

 
I had the unforgivable impudence to ask
For the love of sisters, which is delicate and pure,
The stealthy footstep that leaves the ferns without scar,
And the gentle voice that comes to blend with the dusk.

 
They have forbidden me your hair, your eyes,
Because your hair is long and scented with odours,
And because your eyes have in their depths strange ardours,
And are turbulent like the uncontrollable seas.

 
They have wagged their fingers in an offended way,
Because my gaze was seeking out your tender gaze…
No one has wished to understand, watching us pass,
That I have, in all simplicity, chosen you.

 
Contemplate the disgraceful law that I transgress
And judge my love, which is ignorant of evil,
As guileless, necessary and inevitable
As the desire that joins the lover and the mistress.

 
They did not read the brightness in my eyes at all,
As I walked the path my destiny led me on,
And they said to each other, “Who is that doomed woman [3]
Who is secretly devoured by the flames of Hell?”

 
Let us leave them to stew over their tainted morals,
And let us dream that the dawn is honey-fair,
That the day that holds no bitterness, the night that isn’t sour
Are coming, just like friends whose kindliness consoles…

 
We shall go to see the starlight on the heights together…
What does it matter to us-to us-, the judgement of men?
And what is there for us to fear, since we remain
Pure in the eyes of life, and we love each other?…

 
Renée Vivien
Words to my Love