350

Les Baigneuses, vers 1900-1905

We will not know you, particolour
Figures, while you hesitate so—

You must force yourselves into
Action, slip entirely into the grey

Water, feeling it yield to you,
Weed and stones blowing about

Your solid calves, moved as if by
A sudden, capricious breeze.

There is a kind of fire in the water,
Bellowing softly of its power—

An old fire, dwindling inside an
Ashen frame of brittle wood—

Liable at any second to collapse
And bear your fair bodies with it

Down the tide. O do not remain
So chastely at the water's edge!

Be taken, in this first way, if you
Would not fall to lesser powers.

Abandon yourselves, Mädchen, to
The cool flame, the desolate wind.