The Golden Pheasant

Poem by Auguste Angellier Collection The Path of SeasonsPeriod 20th century

When the Golden Pheasant courts his mate,
And, to dazzle her, fans his wheel, he sparkles
With fires more shimmering than a stained-glass bird.
Raising his golden crest, bristling his cape
Dawn-colored and striped with ebony bars,
Swells his burning red breastplate, he struts,
Each wing lifted, in haughty bearing;
His plumage fills with gleams, the marblings
Of his bronzed green neck, the gold edging of his quills,
The incarnadine of his back, the uncertain splendors
Of his tail where dense grains of vermilion
Alternate with black lines on a ground
Of rich, sumptuous and lucid amethyst,
All lights up, all shines…

… And, on those changing eyes of clear gemstones
Uniting, breaking into jewelry
Set by bronze and steel and silver,
Still runs a shiver of mobile and shifting gold,
That is born, spreads, flees, shrinks, quivers,
Bursts, slides, dies, flows, ripples, scales,
Opens in golden tracery, unfolds in golden plaques,
Throbs, languishes, disperses, powders,
And in an elusive and fairy-like web
Envelops the bird’s blazing body.

Auguste Angellier

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-the-golden-pheasant-auguste-angellier/