Oscar Wilde Part 22

_Inepuisable quits de sottise et de fautes!

De l'antique douleur eternel alambic!

A travers le treillis recourbe de tes cotes Je vois, errant encor, l'insatiable aspic._

_Pour dire vrai, je crains que ta coquetterie Ne trouve pas un prix digne de ses efforts; Qui, de ces soeurs mortels, entend la raillerie?

Les charmes de l'horreur n'enivrent que les forts!_

_Le gouffre de tes yeux, plein d'horrible pensees, Exhale le vertige, et les danseurs prudents Ne contempleront pas sans d'ameres nausees Le sourire eternel de tes trente-deux dents._

_Pourtant, qui n'a serre dans ses bras un squelette, Et qui ne s'est nourri des choses du tombeau?

Qu'importe le parfum, l'habit ou la toilette?

Qui fait le degoute montre qu'il se croit beau._

_Bayadere sans nez, irresistible gouge, Dis donc a ces danseurs qui font les offusques: 'Fiers mignons, malgre l'art des poudres et du rouge, Vous sentez tous la mort!' O squelettes musques._

_Antinous fletris, dandys a face glabre, Cadavres vernisses, lovelaces chenus, Le branle universel de la danse macabre Vous entraine en des lieux qui ne sont pas connus!_

_Des quais froids de la Seine aux bords brulants du Gange, Le troupeau mortel saute et se pame, sans voir, Dans un trou du plafond la trompette de l'Ange Sinistrement beante ainsi qu'un tromblon noir._

_En tout climat, sous ton soleil, la Mort t'admire En tes contorsions, risible Humanite, Et souvent, comme toi, se parfumant de myrrhe, Mele son ironie a ton insanite!_"

The French poem lacks the simplicity and the directness of its English fellow. It appears overloaded and artificial in comparison, and above all it lacks the music which results from the juxtaposition of the Anglo-Saxon a, e, i, and u sounds, and the Latin ahs and ohs.

But, on the other hand, as an example of the precious and artificial in literature, a further poem of Wilde's written at this period, "The Sphinx," reveals another phase of his extraordinarily versatile genius.

The metre of the poem is the same as that of "In Memoriam," though, owing to the stanzas being arranged in two long lines instead of the fairly short ones in Tennyson's poem, this might at first escape attention. The poet at the time of writing we learn had

"hardly seen Some twenty summers cast their green for Autumn's gaudy liveries."

(which would seem to indicate that this part, at any rate, was written at an earlier period than the rest of the poem), and in the very first lines he tells us that--

"In a dim corner of my rooms far longer than my fancy thinks A beautiful and silent sphinx has watched me through the silent gloom."

Day and night--

"this curious cat Lies crouching on the Chinese mat with eyes of satin rimmed with gold."

Here we have in a very few words an exact picture of this "exquisite grotesque half-woman and half-animal," whom, after the manner of Edgar Allan Poe with his raven, he proceeds to apostrophise--

"Oh tell me" [he begins] "were you standing by when Isis to Osiris knelt?

And did you watch the Egyptian melt her union for Antony?"

and plies her with many questions of similar nature. Presently he adjures her--

"Lift up your large black satin eyes which are like cushions where one sinks!

Fawn at my feet, Sphinx! and sing me all your memories."

This idea of comparing the velvet depths of the eyes to "cushions where one sinks" is quaint and original, though distinctly decadent, nor is the note of the _macabre_ wanting, as--

"When through the purple corridors the screaming scarlet Ibis flew In terror, and a horrid dew dripped from the moaning mandragores."

There is a wonderful use of contrast in the introduction of sweating mandragores in connection with the purple of the corridors and the scarlet plumage of the Ibis. How daring, likewise, the grotesque note introduced as he recites the catalogue of her possible lovers and asks--

"Did giant Lizards come and couch before you on the reedy banks?

Did Gryphons with great metal flanks leap on you in your trampled couch?

Did monstrous hippopotami come sidling towards you in the mist?

Did gilt-scaled dragons writhe and twist with pa.s.sion as you pa.s.sed them by?"

The speaker will find out the secret of her amours. There is nothing too bizarre, too monstrous to include in the list.

"Had you shameful secret quests" [he asks] "and did you hurry to your home Some nereid coiled in amber foam with curious rock crystal breasted?"

Not Baudelaire himself could have invented anything more precious than the description of this sea-nymph, but the gruesome must be introduced.

"Did you," he inquires,

"Steal to the border of the bar and swim across the silent lake?

And slink into the vault and make the Pyramid your lupanar, Till from each black sarcophagus rose up the painted swathed dead?"

Wilde catalogues through the whole Egyptian mythology; he is inclined to give first place to "Ammon."

"You kissed his mouth with mouths of flame: you made the horned G.o.d your own: You stood behind him on his throne: you called him by his secret name.

You whispered monstrous oracles into the caverns of his ears: With blood of goats and blood of steers you taught him monstrous miracles."

Decadent the idea may be, but how cleverly, how subtly the effects are produced and how well sustained is the atmosphere of chimerical, nightmare horrors. Wilde makes use of the impression derived from the contemplation of colossal figures--the Egyptian galleries of the Louvre were, one may be certain, a daily haunt of his at the time--and he describes--"Nine cubits span" and his limbs are "Widespread as a tent at noon," but he was of flesh and blood for all that.

"His thick soft throat was white as milk and threaded with thin veils of blue,"

and he was royally clad, for--

"Curious pearls like frozen dew were embroidered on his flaming silk."

His love of rare and beautiful things finds an outlet in the description of the jewels and retinue of the G.o.d.

"Before his gilded galliot ran naked vine-wreathed corybantes, And lines of swaying elephants knelt down to draw his chariot."

Barbaric splendour and Eastern gorgeousness we have here and in one line the sense of immense wealth is conveyed--

"The meanest cup that touched his lips was fashioned from a chrysolite."

But now--

"The G.o.d is scattered here and there: deep hidden in the windy sand I saw his giant granite hand still clenched in impotent despair."

And he bids her--

"Go seek the fragments on the moor and wash them in the evening dew, And from their pieces make anew thy mutilated paramour."

With mocking irony he tells her to "wake mad pa.s.sions in the senseless stone."