Théophile Gautier - Émaux et Camées (1811-1872)

Secret Affinities - Pantheistic Madrigal

Théophile Gautier

“On the pediment of an ancient temple,
Two marble blocks have, for three thousand years,
Against the blue background of the Attic sky,
Juxtaposed their white dreams;

Frozen in the same mother-of-pearl,
Tears of the waves mourning Venus,
Two pearls plunged into the abyss
Spoke unknown words to each other;

In the cool Generalife,
Under the ever-weeping jet of water,
In the time of Boabdil, two roses
Together made their flowers speak;

On the domes of Venice
Two white wood pigeons with pink feet,
In the nest where love lives forever,
One evening in May they alighted.

Marble, pearl, rose, dove,
Everything dissolves, everything is destroyed;
The pearl melts, the marble falls,
The flower fades and the bird flies away.

As they part, each fragment
Goes into the deep crucible
To swell the universal paste
Made of the forms that God moulds.

Through slow metamorphoses,
White marble becomes white flesh,
Pink flowers become pink lips
And are remade into various bodies.

The turtle doves coo once more
In the hearts of two young lovers,
And pearls are moulded into teeth
To form the setting for charming laughter.

From this arise those sympathies
With imperious sweetness,
By which enlightened souls
Everywhere recognise each other as sisters.
Docile to the call of an aroma
Of a ray or a colour,
The atom flies towards the atom
Like the bee towards the flower.

We remember the daydreams
On the pediment or in the sea,
The flowery conversations
Near the fountain with its clear flow,

Kisses and the fluttering of wings
On the domes with their golden balls,
And the faithful molecules
Seek each other and love each other still.

Forgotten love awakens,
The past vaguely revives,
The flower on the red lips
Breathes and recognises itself.

In the mother-of-pearl where laughter shines,
The pearl sees its whiteness again
On a young girl's skin,
The marble is moved by its freshness.

The wood pigeon finds a soft voice,
Echoing its moan,
All resistance is dulled,
And the stranger becomes the lover.

You before whom I burn and tremble,
What flood, what pediment, what rosebush,
What dome knew us together,
Pearl or marble, flower or wood pigeon?”
Théophile Gautier - Émaux et Camées