That Lovely Woman
     From the French of Robert Desnos 1900-45

When age shall make those lips and eyes grow pale
When the heart’s burdened down by memories
And when to lull those limbs now beautiful
None shall be left but ghosts that jeer and tease,
 
When filthy dust that covers all shall clothe
And fold in shrouds desire’s abolished flame
When love as wilted as a dry-pressed rose
Shall hook on faded photographs its name
 
When it will be too late to make us kind
When echoes of each kiss and vow shall die
Like footsteps dwindling in a darkened wynd
Or a train whistling to the midnight sky
 
When hands that passion rendered dry and hard
By wrinkled abdomen and dangling teat
Weary of wiping all those acid tears
Shall check their degradation’s balance-sheet
 
When no cosmetic can deceive this face
That leans towards a long-complaisant glass
As if to drink from a cool mirage-lake
Dreams that the present borrows from the past
 
That lovely woman shall be lovely still
By virtue of a fire that plays and plays
On windows of great echoing rooms, that will
Be haunted by her loves of bygone days
 
That lovely woman like a fountainhead
Streaming on slabs of marble always pure
By all her siren-train accompanied
Shall not renounce her glory evermore
 
Nor shall she vanish from reflected skies
Though loins are flattened skin is loosely hung
She shall go feasting, watched by envious eyes
That woman lovely and for ever young
 
So many hearts once in attendance beat
That in her limbs an unreal flame is sheathed.
Rising above its fires she dazzles yet,
A poker in a burnt-out house, unscathed.

Timothy Adès

published in Acumen;
original French title/publication La belle que voilà / Destinée arbitraire,
© Editions Gallimard