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Title: The Obelisk In Paris
Author: Theophile Gautier [
More Titles by Gautier]
Distant from my native land,
Ever dull with ennui's pain,
Lonely monolith I stand,
In the snow and frost and rain.
And my shaft, once burnt to red
In a flaming heaven's glare,
Taketh on a pallor dead
In this never azure air.
Oh, to stand again before
Luxor's pylons, and the dear,
Grim Colossi!--be once more
My vermilion brother near!
Oh, to pierce the changeless blue,
Where of old my peak upwon,
With my shadow sharp and true
Trace the footsteps of the sun!
Once, O Rameses! my tall mass
Not the ages could destroy.
But it fell cut down like grass.
Paris took it for a toy.
Now my granite form behold:
Sentinel the livelong day
Twixt a spurious temple old,
And the Chambre des Deputes!
On the spot where Louis Seize
Died, they set me, meaningless,
With my secret which outweighs
Cycles of forgetfulness.
Sparrows lean defile my head,
Where the ibis used to light,
And the fierce gypaetus spread
Talons gold and plumage white.
And the Seine, the drip of street,
Unclean river, crime's abyss,
Now befouls mine ancient feet,
Which the Nile was wont to kiss:
Hoary Nile that, crowned and stern,
To its lotus-laden shores
From its ever bended urn
Crocodiles for gudgeon pours!
Golden chariots gem-belit
Of the Pharaohs' pageanting
Grazed my side the cab-wheels hit,
Bearing out the last poor king.
By my granite shape of yore
Passed the priests, with stately pschent,
And the mystic boat upbore,
Emblemed and magnificent.
But to-day, profane and wan,
Camped between two fountains wide,
I behold the courtesan
In her carriage lounge with pride.
From the first of year to last
I must see the vulgar show--
Solons to the Council passed,
Lovers to the woods that go!
Oh, what skeletons abhorred,
Hence, an hundred years, this race!
Couched, unbandaged, on a board,
In a nailed coffin's place.
Never hypogeum kind,
Safe from foul corruption's fear;
Never hall where century-lined
Generations disappear!
Sacred soil of hieroglyph,
And of sacerdotal laws,
Where the Sphinx is waiting stiff,
Sharpening on the stone its claws,--
Soil of crypt where echoes part,
Where the vulture swoopeth free,
All my being,--all my heart,
O mine Egypt, weeps for thee!
[The end]
Theophile Gautier's poem: Obelisk In Paris
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