Chapter I

Art of the Flemings, thou didst know them, thou,
Who well didst love them, wenches big of bone,
With ruddy teats, and bodies like flowers blown;
Thy proudest masterpieces tell us how.

Whether a goddess glimmers from thy painting,
Or nymphs with dripping hair a shepherd sees
Rising among the lonely irides,
Or sailors to the sirens' kisses fainting,

Or females with full contours symbolizing
The seasons beautiful, O glorious Art,
These are the Masteries love-born in thy heart,
The wenches of thy colours' gormandizing.

And to create their bodies' carnal splendour,
Naked, and fat, and unashamed, thy brush
Under their clear and glossy skin made blush
A fire of unimagined colours tender.

They were a focussed light that flashed and glinted;
Their eyes were kindled at the stars, and on
Thy canvases their bosoms rose and shone,
Like great bouquets of flesh all rosy-tinted.

Sweating with love they rolled about a clearing
'Mid in the wood, or bathed their feet in springs,
While in the thickets full of noise of wings,
Satyrs were prowling and through branches leering,

And hid their legs, salacious, shagged, distorted;
Their eyes, like sparks holing the darkness, lit
Some leafy corner, their long mouths were slit
With greasy smiles, their lustful nostrils snorted,

Till, dogs in rut, they leapt to their bitches; these
Feign flight, and shiver coldly, blushing roses,
Pushing the satyr off the part that closes,
Squeezing their thighs together under his knees.

And some, by madness more than his ignited,
Rounding their naked haunches, and rich flesh
Of glorious croups beneath a showering mesh
Of golden hair, to wild assaults invited.