Читать книгу Enamels and Cameos and other Poems - Gautier Théophile - Страница 11

There lies within a great museum's hall,

Upon a snowy bed of carven stone,

A statue ever strange and mystical,

With some fair fascination all its own.

And is it youth or is it maiden sweet,

A goddess or a god come down to sway?

Love fearful, hesitating, turns his feet,

Nor any word's avowal will betray.

Sideways it lieth, with averted face,

Stretching its lovely limbs, half mischievous,

Unto the curious crowd, an idle grace

Lighting its marble form luxurious.

For fashioning of its evil beauty brought

The sexes twain each one its magic dower.

Man whispers "Aphrodite!" in his thought,

And woman "Eros!" wondering at its power.

Uncertain sex and certain grace, that seem

To melt forever in a fountain's kiss,

Waters that whelm the body as they gleam

And merge, and it is one with Salmacis.

Ardent chimera, effort venturesome

Of Art and Pleasure – figure fanciful!

Into thy presence with delight I come,

Loving thy beauty strange and multiple.

Though I may never close to thee draw nigh,

How often have my glances pierced the taut,

Straight fold of thine austerest drapery,

Fast at the end about thine ankle caught!

O dream of poet passing every bound!

My thought hath built a fancy of thy form,

Till it is molten into silver sound,

And boy and girl are one in cadence warm.

O tone divine, O richest tone of earth,

The beautiful, bright statue's counterpart!

Contralto, thou fantastical of birth,

The voice's own Hermaphrodite thou art!

Thou art the plaintive dove, the linnet rare,

Perched on one rose tree, mellow in one note.

Thou art fair Juliet and Romeo fair,

Singing across the night with one warm throat.

Thou art the young wife of the castellan,

Chaffing an amorous page below her bower, —

Upon her balcony the lady wan,

The lover at the base of her high tower.

Thou art the yellow butterfly that swings,

Pursuing soft a butterfly of snow,

In spiral flights and subtle traversings,

One winging high, the other winging low;

The angel flitting up and down the gold

Of the bright stair's aerial extent,

The bell in whose alloy of mighty mould

Arc voice of bronze and voice of silver blent

Yea, melody and harmony art thou,

Song with its true accompaniment, and grace

Matched unto force, – the woman plighting vow

To her Belovèd with a close embrace;

Or thou art Cinderella doomed to spend

Her night before the embers of the fire,

Deep in a conversation with her friend,

The cricket, as the latter hours expire;

Or Arsaces, the great and valorous,

Waging his righteous battle for a realm,

Or Tancred with his breastplate luminous,

Cuirassed and splendid with his sword and helm;

Or Desdemona with her willow song,