Explore "The Fellah" by Théophile Gautier on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
_On seeing a Water-Colour by Princess Mathilde_
Caprice of brush fantastical, / And of imperial idleness, / Your fellah-sphinx presents us all / With an enigma worth the guess.
A rigid fashion, verily, / This mask, this garment, seem to us, / Intriguing with its mystery / The ball-room's every Oedipus.
Isis bequeathed her veil of old / To modern daughters of the Nile. / But through this band austere, behold, / Two stars of radiance beam and smile, --
Two stars, two eyes, two poems that spring, / The soft, voluptuous fires whereof / Resolve the riddle, murmuring: / "Lo, I am Beauty! Be thou Love! "