The Fellah
Caprice of brush fantastical,And of imperial idleness,Your fellah-sphinx presents us allWith an enigma worth the guess.
A rigid fashion, verily,This mask, this garment, seem to us,Intriguing with its mysteryThe ball-room's every Oedipus.
Isis bequeathed her veil of oldTo 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 whereofResolve the riddle, murmuring:"Lo, I am Beauty! Be thou Love!"
Words in this poem
- fantastical a.
- Fanciful; unreal; whimsical; capricious; fantastic.
- isis n.
- The principal goddess worshiped by the Egyptians. She was regarded as the mother of Horus, and the sister and wife of Osiris.
- whereof adv.
- Of which; of whom; formerly, also, with which; -- used relatively.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Fellah is in the public domain. This text is taken from Enamels and Cameos and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #29521, the Agnes Lee translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Théophile Gautier, The Fellah, in Enamels and Cameos and Other Poems (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #29521, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/gautier-enamels-cameos/the-fellah.html, id L27027.
Form and metre
The Fellah is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB fantasticalA · idlenessB · allA · guessB
- 2 ABAB verilyA · usB · mysteryA · oedipusB
- 3 ABAB oldA · nileB · beholdA · smileB
- 4 ABAB springA · whereofB · murmuringA · loveB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Caprice of brush fantastical, | 8 | ˘/··˘/˘˘ |
| And of imperial idleness, | 9 | ··˘/˘˘/˘˘ |
| Your fellah-sphinx presents us all | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| With an enigma worth the guess. | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| A rigid fashion, verily, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘˘ |
| This mask, this garment, seem to us, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Intriguing with its mystery | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘˘ |
| The ball-room's every Oedipus. | 9 | ···/˘˘/˘˘ |
| Isis bequeathed her veil of old | 8 | /˘˘/···· |
| To modern daughters of the Nile. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| But through this band austere, behold, | 8 | ····˘/˘/ |
| Two stars of radiance beam and smile,-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Two stars, two eyes, two poems that spring, | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| The soft, voluptuous fires whereof | 8 | ··˘/˘/·· |
| Resolve the riddle, murmuring: | 8 | ˘/·/˘/˘˘ |
| "Lo, I am Beauty! Be thou Love!" | 8 | ···/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.