Enamels and Cameos and other Poems. Gautier Théophile

she upright stood

      Naked upon the margent of the sea.

      Fairer than any foam-drops crystalline,

      Great pearls of Venice lay upon her breast,

      Jewels of milky wonder lightly pressed

      Upon the cool, fresh satin of her skin.

      Exhaustless as the waves that kiss the brim,

      Under the gleaming moon of many moods,

      Were all the strophes of her attitudes.

      What fascination sang her beauty's hymn!

      But soon, grown weary of an art antique,

      Of Phidias and of Venus, lo! again

      Within another new and plastic strain

      She grouped her charms unveiled and unique.

      Upon a cashmere opulently spread,

      Sultana of Seraglio then she lay,

      Laughing unto her little mirror gay,

      That laughed again with lips of coral red;

      The indolent, soft Georgian, posturing

      With her long, supple narghile at lip,

      Showing the glorious fashion of her hip,

      One foot upon the other languishing.

      And, like to Ingres' Odalisque, supine,

      Defying prurient modesty turned she,

      Displaying in her beauty candidly

      Wonder of curve and purity of line.

      But hence, thou idle Odalisque! for life

      Hath now its own fair picture to display —

      The diamond in its rare effulgent ray, —

      Beauty in Love hath reached its blossom rife.

      She sways her body, bendeth back her head.

      Her breathing comes more subtle and more fast.

      Rocked in her dream's alluring arms, at last

      Down hath she fallen upon her costly bed.

      Her eyelids beat like fluttering pinions lit

      Upon the darkened silver of her eyes.

      Her bright, voluptuous glances upward rise

      Into the vague and nacreous infinite.

      Deck her with sweet, lush violets, instead

      Of death-flowers with their every pearl a tear;

      Scatter their purple clusters on her bier,

      Who of her being's ecstasy lies dead.

      And bear her very gently to her tomb —

      Her bed of white. There let the poet stay,

      Long hours upon his bended knees to pray,

      When night shall close around the funeral room.

      A STUDY OF HANDS

IIMPERIA

      A sculptor showed to me one day

      A hand, a Cleopatra's lure,

      Or an Aspasia's, cast in clay,

      Of masterwork a fragment pure.

      Seized in a snowy kiss, and fair

      As lily in the argent rise

      Of dawn, like whitest poem there

      Its beauty lay before mine eyes,

      Bright in its pallor lustreless,

      Reposing on a velvet bed,

      Its fingers, weighted with their dress

      Of jewels, delicately spread.

      A little parted lay the thumb,

      Showing the undulating line,

      Beautiful, graceful, subtlesome,

      Of its proud contour Florentine.

      Strange hand! I wonder if it toyed

      In silken locks of Don Juan,

      Or on a gem-bright caftan joyed

      To stroke the beard of some soldan;

      Whether, as courtesan or queen,

      Within its fingers fair and slight

      Was pleasure's gilded sceptre seen,

      Or sceptre of a royal might!

      But sweet and firm it must have lain

      Full oft its touch of power rare

      Upon the curling lion-mane

      Of some chimera caught in air.

      Imperial, idle fantasy,

      And love of soft, luxurious things,

      Frenzies of passion, wondrous, free,

      Impossible dream-flutterings!

      Romances wild, and poesy

      Of hasheech and of wine, vain speeds

      Beneath Bohemia's brilliant sky

      On unrestrained and maddened steeds!

      All these were in the lines of it,

      Of that white book with magic scrolled,

      Where ciphers stood, by Venus writ,

      That Love had trembled to behold.

IILACENAIRE

      Strange contrast was the severed hand

      Of Lacenaire, the murderer dead,

      Soaked in a powerful essence, and

      Near by upon a cushion spread.

      Letting a morbid fancy win,

      I touched, despite my loathing sane,

      The cold, hair-covered, slimy skin,

      Not yet washed clean of deathly stain.

      Yellow, uncanny, mummified,

      Like to a Pharaoh's hand it lay,

      And stretched its faun-shaped fingers wide,

      Crisp with temptation's awful play;

      As though an itch for flesh and gold

      Lured them to horrors yet to be,

      Twisting them roughly as of old,

      Teasing their immobility.

      There every vice and passion's whim

      Had seamed the flesh abundantly

      With hideous hieroglyphs and grim,

      That headsmen read with fluency.

      There plainly writ in furrows fell,

      I saw the deeds of sin and soil,

      Scorchings from every fiery hell

      Wherein corruptions seethe and boil.

      There was a track of Capri's vice,

      Of lupanars and gaming-scores,

      Fretted with wine and blood and dice,

      Like ennui of old emperors.

      Supple and fierce, it had some dower

      Of grace unto the searching eye,

      Some brutal fascination's power,

      A gladiator's mastery.

      Cold aristocracy of crime!

      No