The Thyrsus. To Franz Liszt

What is a thyrsus? According to the moral and poetical sense, it is a / sacerdotal emblem in the hand of the priests or priestesses celebrating / the divinity of whom they are the interpreters and servants. But / physically it is no more than a baton, a pure staff, a hop-pole, a / vine-prop; dry, straight, and hard. Around this baton, in capricious / meanderings, stems and flowers twine and wanton; these, sinuous and / fugitive; those, hanging like bells or inverted cups. And an astonishing / complexity disengages itself from this complexity of tender or brilliant / lines and colours. Would not one suppose that the curved line and the / spiral pay their court to the straight line, and twine about it in a / mute adoration? Would not one say that all these delicate corollae, all / these calices, explosions of odours and colours, execute a mystical / dance around the hieratic staff? And what imprudent mortal will dare to / decide whether the flowers and the vine branches have been made for the / baton, or whether the baton is not but a pretext to set forth the beauty / of the vine branches and the flowers?

The thyrsus is the symbol of your astonishing duality, O powerful and / venerated master, dear bacchanal of a mysterious and impassioned Beauty. / Never a nymph excited by the mysterious Dionysius shook her thyrsus over / the heads of her companions with as much energy as your genius trembles / in the hearts of your brothers. The baton is your will: erect, firm, / unshakeable; the flowers are the wanderings of your fancy around it: the / feminine element encircling the masculine with her illusive dance. / Straight line and arabesque -- intention and expression -- the rigidity of / the will and the suppleness of the word -- a variety of means united for a / single purpose -- the all-powerful and indivisible amalgam that is / genius -- what analyst will have the detestable courage to divide or to / separate you?