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Title: Contralto
Author: Theophile Gautier [
More Titles by Gautier]
There lies within a great museum's hall,
Upon a snowy bed of carven stone,
A statue ever strange and mystical,
With some fair fascination all its own.
And is it youth or is it maiden sweet,
A goddess or a god come down to sway?
Love fearful, hesitating, turns his feet,
Nor any word's avowal will betray.
Sideways it lieth, with averted face,
Stretching its lovely limbs, half mischievous,
Unto the curious crowd, an idle grace
Lighting its marble form luxurious.
For fashioning of its evil beauty brought
The sexes twain each one its magic dower.
Man whispers "Aphrodite!" in his thought,
And woman "Eros!" wondering at its power.
Uncertain sex and certain grace, that seem
To melt forever in a fountain's kiss,
Waters that whelm the body as they gleam
And merge, and it is one with Salmacis.
Ardent chimera, effort venturesome
Of Art and Pleasure--figure fanciful!
Into thy presence with delight I come,
Loving thy beauty strange and multiple.
Though I may never close to thee draw nigh,
How often have my glances pierced the taut,
Straight fold of thine austerest drapery,
Fast at the end about thine ankle caught!
O dream of poet passing every bound!
My thought hath built a fancy of thy form,
Till it is molten into silver sound,
And boy and girl are one in cadence warm.
O tone divine, O richest tone of earth,
The beautiful, bright statue's counterpart!
Contralto, thou fantastical of birth,
The voice's own Hermaphrodite thou art!
Thou art the plaintive dove, the linnet rare,
Perched on one rose tree, mellow in one note.
Thou art fair Juliet and Romeo fair,
Singing across the night with one warm throat.
Thou art the young wife of the castellan,
Chaffing an amorous page below her bower,--
Upon her balcony the lady wan,
The lover at the base of her high tower.
Thou art the yellow butterfly that swings,
Pursuing soft a butterfly of snow,
In spiral flights and subtle traversings,
One winging high, the other winging low;
The angel flitting up and down the gold
Of the bright stair's aerial extent,
The bell in whose alloy of mighty mould
Arc voice of bronze and voice of silver blent
Yea, melody and harmony art thou,
Song with its true accompaniment, and grace
Matched unto force,--the woman plighting vow
To her Beloved with a close embrace;
Or thou art Cinderella doomed to spend
Her night before the embers of the fire,
Deep in a conversation with her friend,
The cricket, as the latter hours expire;
Or Arsaces, the great and valorous,
Waging his righteous battle for a realm,
Or Tancred with his breastplate luminous,
Cuirassed and splendid with his sword and helm;
Or Desdemona with her willow song,
Zerlina laughing at Mazetto, or
Malcolm, his plaid upon his shoulder strong.
Thee, O thou dear Contralto, I adore!
For these thou art, thou dearest charm of each,
O fair Contralto, double-throated dove!
The Kaled of a Lara, for thy speech,
Thou mightest, like the lost Gulnare, prove,--
In whose heart-stirring, passionate caress
In one wild, tremulous note there blend and mount
A woman's sigh of plaintive tenderness,
And virile accents from a firmer fount.
[The end]
Theophile Gautier's poem: Contralto
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