Read "To a Rose-Coloured Gown" by Théophile Gautier online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
How I love you in the robes / That disrobe so well your charms! / Your dear breasts, twin ivory globes, / And your bare sweet pagan arms.
Frail as frailest wing of bee, / Fresher than the heart of rose, / All the fabric delicate, free, / Round your body gleams and glows,
Till from skin to silken thread, / Silver shivers lightly win, / And the rosy gown have shed / Roses on the creamy skin.
Whence have you the mystic thing, / Made of very flesh of you, / Living mesh to mix and cling / With your glorious body's hue?
Did you take it from the rud / Of the dawn? From Venus' shell? / From a breast-flower nigh to bud? / From a rose about to swell?
Doth the texture have its dye / From some blushing bashfulness? / No -- your portraits do not lie -- / Beauty beauty's form shall guess!
Down you cast your garment fair, / Art-dreamed, sweet Reality, / Like Borghese's princess, rare / For Canova's mastery!
Ah! the folds are lips of fire / Sweeping round your lovely form / In a folly of desire, / With a weft of kisses warm!