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Title: Affinity, A Pantheistic Madrigal
Author: Theophile Gautier [
More Titles by Gautier]
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?
[The end]
Theophile Gautier's poem: Affinity, A Pantheistic Madrigal
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