Читать книгу Enamels and Cameos and other Poems - Gautier Théophile - Страница 6

There is a popular old air

That every fiddler loves to scrape.

'T is wrung from organs everywhere,

To barking dog with wrath agape.

The music-box has registered

Its phrases garbled and reviled.

'T is classic to the household bird;

Grandmother learned it as a child.

The trumpet and the clarinet,

In dusty gardens of the dance,

Blow it to clerk and gay grisette,

In shrill, unlovely resonance.

And of a Sunday swarm the folk

Under the honeysuckle vine,

Quaffing, the while they talk and smoke,

The sun, the melody, the wine.

It lurks within the wry bassoon

The blind man plays, the porch beneath.

His poodle whimpers low the tune,

And holds the cup between its teeth.

The players of the light guitar,

Decked with their flimsy tartans, pale,

With voices sad, where feasters are,

Through coffee-houses fling its wail.

Great Paganini at a sign,

One night, as with a needle's gleam,

Picked up with end of bow divine

The little antiquated theme,

And, threading it with fingers deft,

He broidered it with colours bright,

Till up and down the faded weft

Ran golden arabesques of light.

Tra la, tra la, la, la, la, – who

Knows not the theme's soft spell?

Or sad or light or mock or true,

Our mothers loved it well.

The Carnival of Venice! Long

Adown canals it came,

Till, wafted on a zephyr's song,

The ballet kept its fame.

I seem, whene'er its phrase I hear,

A gondola to view,

With prow voluted, black and clear,

Slip o'er the water blue;

To see, her bosom covered o'er

With pearls, her body suave,

The Adriatic Venus soar

On sound's chromatic wave.

The domes that on the water dwell

Pursue the melody

In clear-drawn cadences, and swell

Like breasts of love that sigh.

My chains around a pillar cast,

I land before a fair

And rosy-pale facade at last,

Upon a marble stair.

Oh! all dear Venice with her towers,

Her boats, her masquers boon,

Her sweet chagrins, her mad, gay hours,

Throbs in that ancient tune.

The tenuous, vibrant chords that smite,

Rebuild in subtle way

The city joyous, free and light

Of Canaletto's day!

Venice robes her for the ball;

Decked with spangles bright,

Multi-coloured Carnival

Teems with laughter light.

Harlequin with negro mask,

Tights of serpent hue,

Beateth with a note fantasque

His Cassander true.

Flapping loose his long, white sleeve,

Like a penguin spread,

Through a subtle semibreve

Pierrot thrusts his head.

Sleek Bologna's doctor goes

Maundering on a bass.

Punchinello finds for nose

Quaver on his face.

Hurtling Trivellino fine,

On a trill intent,

Scaramouch to Columbine

Gives the fan she lent.

Gliding to the tune, I mark

One veiled figure rise,

While through satin lashes dark

Luring gleam her eyes.

Tender little edge of lace,

Heaving with her breath!

"Under is her own dear face!"

An arpeggio saith.

And beneath the mask I know

Bloom of rosy lips,

And the patch on chin of snow,

As she by me trips!

Amid the chatter gay and mad

Saint Mark to Lido wafts, a tune

Like as a rocket riseth glad

As fountain riseth to the moon.

But in that air with laughter stirred,

That shakes its bells far out to sea,

Regret, a little stifled bird,

Mingles its frail sob audibly.

And in a mist of memory clad,

Like dream well-nigh effaced, I view

The sweet Beloved, fair and sad,

Of dear, long-vanished days I knew.

Ah, pale she is! My soul in tears

An April day remembers yet: —

We sought the violets by the meres,

And in the grass our fingers met..

The vibrant note of violin

Is the child voice that struck my heart,

Exquisite, plaintive, argentine,

With all the anguish of its dart.

So sweetly, falsely, doth it steal,

So cruel, yet so tender, too,

So cold, so burning, that I feel

A deadly pleasure pierce me through;

Until my heart, an archway deep

Whose waters feed the fountain's lip,

Lets tears of blood in silence weep

Into my bosom drip by drip.

O Carnival of Venice! – theme

So chilling sad, yet ever warm!

Where laughter toucheth tears supreme, —

How hast thou hurt me with thy charm!