Cats
By Charles Baudelaire
Stiff scholars and the hody amorous
Will in their ripeness equally admire
Powerful, gende cats, pride of the house,
Who, like them, love to sit around the fire.
Friends both of sciences and of l'amour,
They seek the silent horror of the night;
Erebus wants them for his funeral corps,
But in their pride they'd never choose that fate.
They take in sleeping noble attitudes
Great sphinxes in the desert solitudes,
Who seem to be entranced by endless dreams;
Within their potent loins are magic sparks,
And flakes of gold, fine sand, are vaguely seen
Behind their mystic eyes, gleaming like stars.