A Valentine's Day Poem

I Adore You as Much as the Nocturnal Vault...

I adore you as much as the nocturnal vault,
O vase of sadness, most taciturn one,
I love you all the more because you flee from me,
And because you appear, ornament of my nights,
More ironically to multiply the leagues
That separate my arms from the blue infinite.

I advance to attack, and I climb to assault,
Like a swarm of maggots after a cadaver,
And I cherish, implacable and cruel beast,
Even that coldness which makes you more beautiful.

Charles Baudelaire
— Translated by William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)