A Minute Poem by Camille Mauclair

OPEN the door, my daughter, hark!
Someone is knocking in the dark.
- I cannot go to see what stranger knocks,
Before the mirror I do dress my locks.

Open the door, my daughter fair,
There is someone who is fainting there!
- I cannot open now, my hands
Are through my corset threading silk ribands.

O my daughter, open the door!
I am old, I can rise no more ...
- Father, I cannot go and look,
I am busy with my button-hook.

Perhaps a dead man there is lying,
The wind behind the door is crying!
- Had he been handsome, I had felt the call:
My breasts have quivered not at all.

translated by Jethro Bithell