When the child's forehead full of red torments Begs for the white swarm of indistinct dreams There come close to his bed two big charming sisters With frail fingers and silver nails. They seat the child next to a window Wide open, where blue air bathes a confusion of flowers And in his heavy hair where the dew falls Promenade their delicate fingers, terrible and enchanting. He hears the singing of their timorous breath Which bears the scent of long vegetable and rosy honeys And which a whistling interrupts now and then, salivas Taken back from the lip or desires for kisses. He hears their black eyelashes beating beneath perfumed Silences; and their fingers electric and sweet Make crackle among his hazy indolences Beneath their royal fingernails the death of little lice. Now there is mounting in him the wine of Laziness, Harmonica's sigh which could be delirious; The child feels, according to the slowness of the caresses, Spring up and die unceasingly a wish to cry. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME' by ROBERT BROWNING THE SCARECROW by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE HER DILEMMA; IN CHURCH by THOMAS HARDY BALLADE OF BROKEN FLUTES by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE PRINCESS: [BUGLE] SONG by ALFRED TENNYSON |