The Little Old Women by Charles Pierre Baudelaire

I

Deep in the tortuous folds of ancient towns, / Where all, even horror, to enchantment turns, / I watch, obedient to my fatal mood, / For the decrepit, strange and charming beings, / The dislocated monsters that of old / Were lovely women -- Lais or Eponine! / Hunchbacked and broken, crooked though they be, / Let us still love them, for they still have souls. / They creep along wrapped in their chilly rags, / Beneath the whipping of the wicked wind, / They tremble when an omnibus rolls by, / And at their sides, a relic of the past, / A little flower-embroidered satchel hangs. / They trot about, most like to marionettes; / They drag themselves, as does a wounded beast; / Or dance unwillingly as a clapping bell / Where hangs and swings a demon without pity. / Though they be broken they have piercing eyes, / That shine like pools where water sleeps at night; / The astonished and divine eyes of a child / Who laughs at all that glitters in the world.