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A poem dedicated to you my dear.
TO A RED-HAIRED BEGGAR GIRL
Gaping tatters in each garment prove your calling is not only beggary but beauty as well, and to a poet equally �reduced,�the frail and freckled body you display makes its own appeal � queens in velvet buskins take the stage less regally than you wade through the mud on your wooden clogs.
What if, instead of these indecent rags,the splendid train of a brocaded gown rustled at your heels, and rather than town stockings, just suppose curious glances sliding up your thigh met with a gold dirk! And then if, for our sins, those flimsy knots released two perfect little breasts that shine brighter than your eyes, and your own arms consented to reveal the rest, though archly feigning to fend off hands that go too far . . .
Strands of pearls and strophes by Belleau arriving � imagine! � endless streams �from an admirer�; riffraff � talented and otherwise � offering tributes to the slippered feet glimpsed from below stairs; gentlemen sending flunkeys to find out who owns the carriage always told to �wait� at your smart address where in the boudoir, kisses count for more than quarterings, although the cast includes a Bourbon or two!
Meanwhile, here you are, begging scraps doled out by the local table d�h�te at the kitchen door and scavenging discarded finery worth forty sous, a price which (pardon me!) I cannot afford . . .
Go, then, my Beauty, with nor ornament � patchouli or pearl chocker � but your own starveling nakedness!
Charles Baudelaire
Les Fleurs Du Mal
Good day from Newmarket Farm !!