________________________________________________
Title: Variations On The Carnival Of Venice
Author: Theophile Gautier [
More Titles by Gautier]
I
ON THE STREET
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.
II
ON THE LAGOONS
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!
III
CARNIVAL
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!
IV
MOONLIGHT
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!
[The end]
Theophile Gautier's poem: Variations On The Carnival Of Venice
________________________________________________
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
