The Cameo Frame
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I.
Golden, golden is the air,
Golden is the air,
Golden frets of golden mandolins,
Golden notes of golden violins,
Fair… Oh wearily fair;
Skeins from woven basket
Mortal may not hold,
Oh what young extravagant god,
Who would know or ask it…
Who could give such gold…
Oh the proud page
In the gold gloaming,
When the light whispers
And the souls roaming,
Ports the grey train,
Sees the gold hair
In the gay
The golden air.
She posed that day by the marble pool
At half after five, so her fancy led;
Her slim grey pages, her lord, her fool
Clacked various clacks as they watched the head
Acomba was doing… his own request…
Her head—just from swirling hair to throat,
With clinging silk for a shoulder sheath
And half the curve of a breast beneath.
“Head to the left… so… Can you stand
A little more sun on hair and face?”
Then as he lightly touched her hand
She whispered to him a time, a place
Then he aloud “Here’s the very light,
My Lord, for the gold and rose effect…
Such a light over pool and sky
As cameo never was graven by.”
Over her grey and velvet dress
Under her molten, beaten hair
Color of rose in mock distress
Flushes and fades and makes her fair
Fills the air from her to him
With light and languor and little sighs
Just so subtly he scarcely knows
Laughing lightening, color of rose.
And grey to rose, and rose to gold
The color of day is twain, is one;
And he blinds his eyes that his heart may hold
This cameo on the setting sun,
And lip and fingers as lip and lip
Burn together and chill apart
And he turns his head as he sees her go,
Beautiful, pitiful, cameo.
Oh the proud page
In the green gloaming,
When the grass whispers
And the souls roaming,
Ports the grey train,
Sees the gold hair
In the gay
The golden air.
II.
The night was another fragile frame
Tall and quiet and fair to fill;
It made for Acomba when he came
A silver setting… He watched until
She fluttered down from the guarded hall
A weary leaf from a dreary tree,
Fluttered to him where the breezes cool
Made pale love to the marble pool.
Then the moon and his heart sank low…
All that he knew of a sudden there
Was just that the light on the cameo
Was not the light that had made it fair…
Not the grey and not the rose,
Not the gold of the afternoon,
So he kissed it sadly and spoke a name
And he pressed it back in its silver frame.
And youth in anger, and time in tears
Sat at his feet and bade him take…
“Once a day for a thousand years
Think of the gold her hair will make…
Shaper of lips you may not kiss
Scorn you the soul where colors touch
Kept for you in a golden sleep!…”
But he could never say why… or weep.
So ice by day and ghost by night
The cameo lay till its moment came
And blushed for the sunset bold and bright
Gold and rose in its velvet frame,
And he who made it would stand and smile,
Pause and pity and count the years,
Watch and watch till the frame turned blue
Knower of things was he… he knew…
Golden, golden is the air,
Golden is the air,
Golden frets of golden mandolins,
Golden notes from golden violins,
Fair, oh wearily fair;
Skiens from woven basket
Mortal may not hold
Oh what young extravagant god
Who would know or ask it
Who could give such gold!
—F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Published in Nassau Literary Magazine magazine (October 1917).
Not illustrated.