Читать книгу Enamels and Cameos and other Poems - Gautier Théophile - Страница 3

On an ancient temple gleaming,

Two great blocks of marble high

Thrice a thousand years lay dreaming

Dreams against an Attic sky.

Set within one silver whiteness,

Two wave-tears for Venus shed,

Two fair pearls of orient brightness,

Through the waste of water sped.

In the Generalife's fresh closes,

By a Moorish light illumed,

Two delicious, tender roses

By a fountain met and bloomed.

In the balm of May's bright weather,

Where the domes of Venice rise,

Lighted on Love's nest together

Two pale doves from azure skies.

All things vanish into wonder,

Marble, pearl, dove, rose on tree,

Pearl shall melt and marble sunder,

Flower shall fade and bird shall flee!

Not a smallest part but lowly

Through the crucible must pass,

Where all shapes are molten slowly

In the universal mass.

Then as gradual Time discloses

Marbles melt to whitest skin,

Roses red to lips of roses,

And anew the lives begin.

And again the doves are plighted

In the hearts of lovers, while

Ocean pearls are reunited,

Set within a coral smile.

Thus affinity comes welling;

By its beauty everywhere

Soul a sister-soul foretelling,

All awakened and aware.

Quickened by a zephyr sunny,

Or a perfume, subtlewise,

As the bee unto the honey,

Atom unto atom flies.

And remembered are the hours

In the temple, down the blue,

And the talks amid the flowers,

Near the fount of crystal dew,

Kisses warm, and on the royal

Golden domes the wings that beat;

For the atoms all are loyal,

And again must love and greet.

Love forgotten wakes imperious,

For the past is never dead,

And the rose with joy delirious

Breathes again from lips of red.

Marble on the flesh of maiden

Feels its own white bloom, and faint

Knows the dove a murmur laden

With the echo of its plaint,

Till resistance giveth over,

And the barriers fall undone,

And the stranger is the lover,

And affinity hath won!

You before whose face I tremble,

Say – what past we know not of

Called our fates to reassemble, —

Pearl or marble, rose or dove?