Explore "The God and the Opal" by Théophile Gautier on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
TO THEOPHILE GAUTIER
Gray caught he from the cloud, and green from earth, / And from a human breast the fire he drew, / And life and death were blended in one dew. / A sunbeam golden with the morning's mirth, / A wan, salt phantom from the sea, a girth / Of silver from the moon, shot colour through / The soul invisible, until it grew / To fulness, and the Opal Song had birth.
And then the god became the artisan. / With rarest skill he made his gem to glow, / Carving and shaping it to beauty such / That down the cycles it shall gleam to man, / And evermore man's wonderment shall know / The perfect finish, the immortal touch.
Agnes Lee.