New York: R. Worthington, 770 Broadway, 1882.
8vo., pp. (IX) 321, red cloth, gilt top. Head Gautier as Frontispiece.
(III)
The love that caught strange light from death's own eyes,
And filled death's lips with fiery words and sighs,
And half asleep, let feed from veins of his,
Her close red warm snake's-mouth, Egyptian-wise:
And that great night of love more strange than this,
When she that made the whole world's bale and bliss
Made king of the whole world's desire a slave
And killed him in mid-kingdom with a kiss.
Swinburne.
Memorial verses on the death of Théophile Gautier."
(V-IX) To the Reader (Extract).
It is the artist, therefore, who must judge of Gautier's creations. To the lovers of the loveliness of the antique world, the lovers of physical beauty and artistic truth,—of the charm of youthful dreams and young passion in its blossoming,—of poetic ambitions and the sweet pantheism that finds all Nature vitalized by the Spirit of the Beautiful,—to such the first English version of these graceful fantasies is offered in the hope that it may not be found wholly unworthy of the original.
New Orleans, 1882. L. H.
Pages 317-21 Addenda.
New Edition. New York: Brentano's, 1899, 12mo.
New Edition. New York: Brentano's, 1906, 12mo.