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Title: A Pleasant Evening
Author: Theophile Gautier [
More Titles by Gautier]
What flurrying of rains and snows!
Now every coachman, blue of nose,
In fur and ire
Sits petrified. Oh, it were right
To spend this wild December night
Before one's fire!
The cosy chimney-corner chair
Assumes its most persuasive air.
I seem to see
Its arms held out, its voice to hear,
Beseeching like a mistress dear:
"Ah, stay with me!"
A gauze reveals the orbed lamp,
Like a fair breast beneath a guimpe,
And drowsily
The shimmer of its light ascends,
Flushing with gold and crimson blends
The ceiling high.
The silence frames no sound of things,
Save for the pendulum that swings
Its golden disk,
And many winds that roam and weep,
Or stealthy to the hall-way sweep,
To dance and frisk.
It's ball-night at the Embassy.
My coat's limp sleeves are signalling me
To dress anon.
My waistcoat yawns. My shirt obtuse
Seems raising high its wristbands loose,
To be put on.
A narrow boot's abundant glaze
Reflects the ruddy firelight's blaze.
Have I forgot?
A glove's flat fingers span the shelf.
A thin cravat protrudes itself,
And begs a knot.
Then must I forth? But what a bore--
To seek the over-crowded door!
To fall in line
Of coaches bearing coats of arms
And haughty beauties with their charms,
Superb and fine!
To stand against a portal wide
And see the surging mass inside
Bear form on form:
Old faces, faces fresh and young,
Black coats low bodices among,--
A motley swarm!
And puffy backs that hide their red
With laces fine of costly thread
Aerial,
Dandies, diplomatists, that press,
With features dull, expressionless,
At fashion's call.
What! Brave, to win a glance of hers,
The rows of lynx-eyed dowagers!
Try undeterred
To speak the dear name of my dear,
And whisper softly in her ear
Love's little word!
Nay, but I'll not! Her eye shall heed
A letter in the flowers I'll speed.
No ball-room now!
Let Parma violets make good
Whatever be her passing mood.
They hold my vow.
Ensconced with Heine or with Taine,
Or, if I like, the Goncourts twain,
The time will go.
I'll dream, until the hour shall stir
Reality, and wait for her.
She'll come, I know.
[The end]
Theophile Gautier's poem: Pleasant Evening
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