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Title: The Mermaids
Author: Theophile Gautier [
More Titles by Gautier]
There's a sketch you may discover
By an artist of degree
Rime and metre quarrel over--
Theophile Kniatowski.
On the snowy foam that fringes
All the mantle of the brine,
Radiant with the sunlight's tinges,
Three mermaidens softly shine.
Like the drowned lilies dancing
Turn they, as the spiral wave
Buoys their bodies hiding, glancing,
As they sink and rise and lave.
In their golden hair for dowers
They have twined with beauteous hands
Shells for diadems, and flowers
From the deep wild under sands.
Oysters pour a pearly hoarding
Their enrapturing throats to gem,
And the wave, its wealth according,
Tosses other pearls to them.
Borne above the crest of ocean
By a Triton hand and strong,
Twine they, beautiful of motion,
Under gleaming tresses long.
And the crystal water under,
Down the blue the glories pale
Of each lovely form of wonder,
Tapered to a shimmering tail.
Ah! But who the scaly swimmers
Would behold in modern day--
When a bust of ivory glimmers,
Cool from kisses of the spray?
Look! Oh, mingled truth and fable!
O'er the horizon steady plied,
Comes a vessel proud and stable,
Toward the mermaids terrified!
Tricoloured its flag is flaunted,
And it vomits vapour red,
And it beats the billows daunted,
Till the nymphs dive low for dread.
Fearlessly they did beleaguer
Triremes immemorial,
And the dolphins arched and eager
Waited for Arion's call.
This of old. But now the steamer--
Vulcan hurtling Venus' charms,--
Would destroy the siren gleamer,
With her fair, nude tail and arms.
Farewell myth! The boat that passes
Thinks to see on silver bar,
Where the widening billow glasses,
Porpoises that plunge afar.
[The end]
Theophile Gautier's poem: Mermaids
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