RODIN

VII

LES DEUX GÊNIES

Published in the Weekly Critical Review

Paris, France

2 July 1903

(page 16)

Good bends and breathes into the rosy shell

Of peace and perfume, love in idleness,

Of pure cold raptures, hymns the mystic stress,

Imagining’s reiterate miracle.

Evil breathes, bending, the reverberate spell

Conjuring ghosts of the insane address

Of agony lurid in the damned caress,

Exulting tortures of the heart of hell.

The maiden sits and listens, smiles. Her breath

Is easy; over her bowed head falls deep

Glowing cascades of hair; she combs her hair

With subtle ecstasy, electric sweep

Of unimaginable joy; let life and death

Pass; she will comb, and comb, and will not care.