Paul Verlaine
Forty-one Poems
Translated by A. S. Kline © 2002-2009 All Rights Reserved.
This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.
Contents
Sadness,
The Bodily Weariness…
(Poèmes Saturniens: Mélancholia I)
Persian and Papal richness,
sumptuous
Heliogabalus, Sardanapalus!
My desire conjured, where
the gold roofs soar,
To music’s strains,
while fragrances entice,
Endless harems,
bodily paradise!
Calmer these days
and yet no less ardent,
Knowing life, and how
one’s obliged to be,
I’m forced to curb such
lovely folly,
And yet not yield to
too great an extent.
So be it, if
greatness eludes intent,
Yet down with the
nice, and the ordinary!
I always hated a
woman merely pretty!
Rhyme that’s assonant, the friend who’s prudent.
(Poèmes Saturniens: Mélancholia II)
Makes the thrush fly through colourless air,
And the sun casts its monotonous glare
On the yellowing woods, where the north winds hum.
We were alone, and walking in dream,
She and I, hair and thoughts wind-blown.
Then, turning her troubling gaze on me,
‘Your loveliest day?’ asked her voice of fine gold,
Her voice, with its angel’s tone, fresh, vibrant, sweet.
I gave her my answer, a smile so discreet,
And kissed her white hand with devotion.
– Ah! The first flowers, what a fragrance they have!
And how charming the murmured emotion
Of a first ‘yes’ let slip from lips that we love!
(Poèmes Saturniens: Mélancholia IV)
Hair’s gold, eyes’ blue, the flower of the flesh,
Then, in the scent of the dear body’s mesh
The shy spontaneity of caresses!
How far away now is all that lightness
And all that innocence! Ah, backwards yet
From black winter fled to the Springtime of regret
From my disgust, my boredom, my distress.
So I’m alone now, here, sad and alone,
Sad and desperate, chilled like the old,
Poor as an orphan with no elder sister.
O for a woman in love, tender and mild,
Sweet, pensive, dark, and always astonished,
Who now and then kisses your brow like a child.
(Poèmes Saturniens: Mélancholia V)
‘For the wars of love a field of feathers’
Gongora
Calm this feverish rapture a little, my charmer.
Even at its height, you see, sometimes a lover
Needs the quiet forgetfulness of a sister.
Be languid: make your caresses sleep-bringers,
Like your cradling gaze and your sighs.
Ah, the jealous embrace, the obsessive spasm,
Aren’t worth a deep kiss, even one that lies!
But you say to me, child, in your dear heart of gold
Wild desire goes sounding her cry.
Let her trumpet away, she’s far too bold!
Put your brow to my brow, your hand on my hand,
Make me those promises you’ll break by and by,
Let’s weep till the dawn, my little firebrand!
(Poèmes Saturniens: Mélancholia VI)
Of a woman, unknown, whom I love, who loves me,
And who’s never, each time, the same exactly,
Nor, exactly, different: and knows me, is loving.
Oh how she knows me, and my heart, growing
Clear for her, alone, is no longer a problem,
For her alone, she alone understands, then,
How to cool the sweat of my brow with her weeping.
Is she dark, blonde, or auburn? – I’ve no idea.
Her name? I remember it’s vibrant and dear,
As those of the loved that life has exiled.
Her eyes are the same as a statue’s eyes,
And in her voice, distant, serious, mild,
The tone of dear voices, those that have died.
(Poèmes Saturniens: Eaux-Fortes I)
In obtuse angles.
The plumes of smoke like ‘fives’ distinct
Rose thick and black from high roof-tangles.
The sky was grey, there wept a breeze
Like a bassoon.
Far off, a tom-cat, stealthy, discreet,
Miaowed, oh strangely out of tune.
I, walked, of divine Plato dreaming
And of Phidias,
Eyes, eyes of blue jets of gas.
(Poèmes Saturniens: Paysages Tristes VI, L’Heure du Berger)
In a mist that dances, the meadow
Sleeps in the smoke, frogs bellow
In green reeds through which frissons run;
The lilies close their shutters,
The poplars stretch far away,
Tall and serried, their spectres stray;
Among bushes the fireflies flicker;
The owls are awake, in soundless flight
They row through the air on heavy wings,
And the zenith fills, sombrely glowing.
Pale, Venus emerges, and it is Night.
(Poèmes Saturniens: Caprices I, Femme et Chatte)
And it was lovely to see
The white hand and white paw
Fight, in shadows of eve.
She hid – little wicked one! –
In black silk mittens
Claws of murderous agate,
Fierce and bright as kittens’.
The other too was full of sweetness,
Sheathing her sharp talons’ caress,
Though the devil lacked nothing there…
And in the bedroom, where sonorous
Ethereal laughter tinkled in air,
Shone four points of phosphorus.
(Poèmes Saturniens: Caprices III, La Chanson des Ingénues)
Hair braided, eyes blue,
Who live almost hidden from view
In novels barely read.
We walk, arms interlaced,
And the day’s not so pure
As the depths of our thoughts,
And our dreams are azure.
And we run through the fields
And we laugh and we chatter,
From dawn to evening,
We chase butterflies’ shadows:
And shepherdesses’ bonnets
Protect our freshness
And our dresses – so thin –
Are of perfect whiteness.
The Don Juans, the Lotharios,
The Knights all eyes,
Pay their respects to us,
Their greetings and sighs:
In vain though, their grimaces:
They bruise their noses,
On ironic pleats
Of our vanishing dresses:
And our innocence still
Mocks the fantasies
Of those tilters at windmills
Though sometimes we feel
Our hearts beat fiercely
With clandestine dreams,
Knowing we’ll be future
Lovers of libertines.
(Fêtes Galants: Claire de Lune)
Where charming maskers, masked shepherdesses,
Go playing their lutes and dancing, yet gently
Sad beneath fantastic disguises.
While they sing in a minor key
Of all-conquering love and careless fortune,
They seem not to trust their own fantasy
And their song melts away in the light of the moon,
In the quiet moonlight, lovely and sad,
That makes the birds dream in the trees, all
The tall water-jets sob with ecstasies,
The slender water-jets rising from marble.
(Fêtes Galants: Cortège)
Gambols and cavorts for She
Who twists a lace handkerchief
In her hand gloved to the wrist,
While a small black slave in red
Holds the train, at arm’s length,
Of her heavy robe, intent
To see no fold disordered.
The monkey never takes his eyes
From the lady’s soft white throat.
Opulent treasure whose rich note
Asks a god’s torso bare as prize.
The slave will sometimes raise the height,
Rascal, higher than he needs,
Of his sumptuous load, so he
Might see what he dreams of at night;
Yet she appears now unaware
As up the flight of stairs she goes
How insolent approval shows
In her familiar creatures’ stare.
(Fêtes Galants: Les Ingénus)
So that, a question of slopes and breezes,
Ankles sometimes glimmered to please us,
Ah, intercepted! – Those dear foolishnesses!
Sometimes a jealous insect’s sting
Troubled necks of beauties under the branches,
White napes revealed in sudden flashes
A feast for our young eyes’ wild gazing.
Evening fell, ambiguous autumn evening:
The beauties, dreamers who leaned on our arms,
Whispered soft words, so deceptive, such charms,
That our souls were left quivering and singing.
(Fêtes Galants: Les Coquillages)
In the cave where we sought love’s goal,
Has its own peculiarity.
One has the purple colour of souls,
Ours, thief of the blood our hearts possess
When I burn and you flame, like hot coals.
That one affects your languorousness,
Your pallor, your weary form
Angered by my eyes’ mocking caress:
This one mimics the charm
Of your ear, and this I see
Your rosy neck, so full and warm:
But one, among all of them, troubled me.
(Fêtes Galants: Fantoches)
Gathered for mischief together
Gesticulate, black on the moon.
While the most excellent doctor
From
Herbs from the grass’s womb.
But his daughter, piquant-eyed,
To the arbour on the sly,
Glides, half-naked, on a quest
For her Spanish buccaneer:
A nightingale tender clear
Proclaiming his distress.
(Fêtes Galants: Cythère)
Tenderly hide our caress,
Joy the rose-tree cools, sweet friend:
Scents of the rose, languidly,
Thanks to the passing summer breeze,
With her own fragrance blend:
As the promise her eyes gave,
Her courage is complete, while her
Lips yield exquisite fever:
And Love having sated all things save
Appetite: jams and sorbets here
Keep us from the ache of hunger.
(Fêtes Galants: Le Faune)
Centring the bowling-green
Laughs, without doubt presaging,
A sad end to this time serene,
That has led me and has led you,
Melancholy pilgrims lean,
To this hour whose vanishing
Swirls to the sounding tambourine.
(Fêtes Galants: A Clymène)
Romances without words,
Dear, because your eyes
The shade of skies,
Because your voice, strange
Vision that will derange,
Troubling the horizon
Of my reason,
Because the rare perfume
Of your swanlike paleness,
Because the innocence
Of your fragrance,
Ah, because all your being,
Music so piercing,
Clouds of lost angels,
Tones and scents,
Has by soft cadences
With its correspondences,
Lured my subtle heart, Oh
Let it be so!
(Fêtes Galants: Columbine)
Pierrot hopping too
Like a flea
And leaping the wood,
Cassander with hood
Monkishly,
And then Harlequin,
That scoundrel of sin
Fantastic,
Mad-costumed so,
His eyes a-glow,
Can’t mask it,
– Do, mi, so, mi, fa –
All from wide and far,
Go laughing
Sing for her, dancing
That arch little thing
Enchanting
Whose eyes perverse
Green or something worse
Like a cat,
Cry, in her charms cause,
‘Ah, mind where your paws
Are at!’
– Ever and on they go!
Fateful stars that flow
The faster,
Oh, say, towards what
Cruel or dismal lot,
What disaster
This implacable flirt,
Nimbly lifting her skirt,
Her troops,
A rose in her hair,
Leads onward there
Her dupes?
(Fêtes Galants: L’Amour par Terre)
Who, in the park’s most mysterious corner,
Would bend his bow in guileful laughter,
With aspect causing us to daydream so!
Last night’s wind toppled him! The marble
Shattered with dawn’s breath. It’s sad to see
His pedestal, with sculptor’s name to read
Scarce legible in the shadow of an arbour.
Oh, it’s sad to see the empty pedestal
All bare! And melancholy fancies entering
Wander through my dream, where deep chagrin
Calls up a future solitary and fateful.
Oh, it’s sad! – And you feel it, yes, you too,
Touched by the sight, though your roaming eye
Toys with the gold and crimson butterfly
Skimming the debris on the pathway strewn.
(Fêtes Galants: En Sourdine)
Tall branches surround,
Let our love be filled by
This silence profound.
Hearts and souls blend there
And senses’ ecstasy,
With the vague languor
Of pine and strawberry.
With eyelids scarce apart,
Arms crossed in dream,
From your slumbering heart
Chase forever every scheme.
Let’s be convinced at last
By the sweet lulling breeze
That makes the russet grass
Wave in ripples at your feet.
And when solemn evening
Falls from black oaks there,
The nightingale will sing,
The voice of our despair.
(Fêtes Galants: Colloque Sentimental)
Two dark shadows lately passed.
Their lips were slack, eyes were blurred,
The words they spoke scarcely heard.
In the lonely old park’s frozen glass
Two spectral forms invoked the past.
‘Do you recall our former ecstasies?’
‘Why would you have me rake up memories?’
‘Does your heart still beat at my name alone?’
‘Is it always my soul you see in dream?’ – ‘Ah, no’.
‘Oh the lovely days of unspeakable mystery,
When our mouths met!’ – ‘Ah yes, maybe.’
‘How blue it was, the sky, how high our hopes!’
‘Hope fled, conquered, along the dark slopes.’
So they walked there, among the wild herbs,
And the night alone listened to their words.
(La Bonne Chanson: III)
One day in June, I was feeling anxious,
She appeared, smiling at my glances,
The one I admired without fear of ill.
She came, went, returned, spoke, and sat,
Serious, light, ironic, tender,
And I felt, deep in my soul, so sombre,
Some joyous reflection of all that:
Her voice, its subtle music’s tone,
Delightfully accompanying
The artless wit of a sweet chattering
Where a kind heart’s joy was shown.
I was as quickly, once the semblance
Of my rebellion was over, wholly
In the power of that little Fairy,
As since I’ve sought to be, trembling.
(La Bonne Chanson: VI)
Shines in the trees:
From each bright
Branch a voice flees
Beneath leaves that move,
O well-beloved.
The pools reflect
A mirror’s depth,
The silhouette
Of willows’ wet
Black where the wind weeps…
Let us dream, time sleeps.
It seems a vast, soothing,
Tender balm
Is falling
From heaven’s calm
Empurpled by a star…
It’s the exquisite hour.
(La Bonne Chanson: XVI)
Ruined sycamores leafing on black ire:
The bus, a typhoon of mud and metal,
Bouncing, between wheels, with its rattle,
Rolling its red and green eyes slowly,
Workers off to the club, pipes smoking,
Under the eyes of police, those drones,
Roofs dripping, sweating walls, damp stones,
Broken asphalt, gutters where sewers blend,
Behold, my road – with paradise at the end.
(Romances Sans Paroles: Arriettes Oubliées III)
‘It rains softly on the town.’
Rimbaud
As it rains on the town,
What languor so dark
That it soaks to my heart?
Oh sweet sound of the rain
On the earth and the roofs!
For the dull heart again,
Oh the song of the rain!
It rains for no reason
In this heart that lacks heart.
What? And no treason?
It’s grief without reason.
By far the worst pain,
Without hatred, or love,
Yet no way to explain
Why my heart feels such pain!
(Romances Sans Paroles: Arriettes Oubliées IV)
That’s the way we’ll be happiest,
And if our lives have moments that sting,
At least we’ll weep together and be blessed.
O, sister-souls that we are, could we but blend
A childlike gentleness with vague desires
Travelling far from women and from men,
In the strange forgetfulness of what exiles!
Let’s be two children: let’s be two little girls
In love with nothing, amazed by all life brings,
Pale with fear beneath the leaves’ chaste curls
Not knowing they’ve been forgiven everything.
(Romances Sans Paroles: Arriettes Oubliées V)
Joyous notes, a sounding harpsichord’s intrusion.
Pétrus Borel
Gleams distantly in rose-grey evening
While with a wingtips’ weightless sound
A fine old tune, so fragile, charming
Roams discreetly, almost trembling,
Through the chamber She’s long perfumed.
What is this sudden cradle song
That gradually lulls my poor being?
What do you want of me, playful one?
What do you wish, slight vague refrain
Drifting now, dying, towards the window
Opening a little on a patch of garden?
(Romances Sans Paroles: Arriettes Oubliées VII)
Because, because of a girl.
How can my soul be ever assuaged
Though my heart is disengaged?
Though my heart, though my soul
Are far away from that girl,
How can my soul be ever assuaged
Though my heart is disengaged?
And heart, over-sensitive heart
Says to my soul: by what art,
By what art has it captured me
This proud exile, this misery?
My soul says to my heart: do I
Know myself what trapped us, or why
Though exiled, we are here today,
Though long ago we went away?
(Romances Sans Paroles: Arriettes Oubliées VII)
Ennui of the plain,
Vague snow again
Gleams like sand.
The sky is copper
Devoid of any light,
You might almost gather
The moon had lived and died.
Floating clouds
Grey oak-trees lift
In near-by woods
Among the mists.
The sky is copper
Devoid of any light,
You might almost gather
The moon had lived and died.
Wheezing crow
You gaunt wolves too,
When north winds blow
How do you do?
Through interminable land
Ennui of the plain,
Vague snow again
Gleams like sand.
(Romances Sans Paroles: Paysages Belges,
By Saint-Gille
Let’s
away,
My
spring-heeled
Chestnut-bay.
V. Hugo
Turning a hundred, thousand today,
Turning often and turning always,
Turning, turning to sounds of oboes.
Soldier that’s fat, maid that is fatter
Ride on your backs as in their chamber;
Since, for the day, their masters wander
All through the Cambre Wood together.
Turning, turning, brave steeds of their hearts,
While all around you there go turning
Tricksters, sharpers, cunning eyes gleaming,
Turn to the trumpet’s conquering arts.
Better than drinking away till you spin,
Sailing around this mad circus instead!
Good for the belly, and bad for the head,
Badness en masse then goodness again.
Turning, turning, and no need today
For using the spurs over the ground
Pricking away as you gallop around,
Turn now and turn, there’s no hope of hay.
Speed quickly now, brave steeds of their souls,
Already here night falls from above
Soon will unite the pigeon and dove,
Far from the fair and far from the fold.
Turning and turning! The velvety sky
In starry gold is now slowly arrayed.
There steal beloved, and lover, away.
Turn to the drumbeat, joyous and high.
At the Saint-Gilles fair, August 1872
(Romances Sans Paroles: Birds In The Night V)
You lay in bed as if you were weary.
But, O light body that my love bore,
You leapt up naked, crying and happy.
Oh what kisses! What mad embraces!
I myself laughed through my tears.
Surely those moments will leave their traces,
My saddest of all yet best it appears.
I’d not wish to see your smile or worse,
Or your lovely eyes, for that very reason,
Aught of you, in short, whom one must curse,
Exquisite snare, but the ghost of that season.
(Romances Sans Paroles: Aquarelles, Green)
Here my heart that beats only for your sighs.
Shatter them not with your snow-white hands,
Let my poor gifts be pleasing to your eyes.
I come to you, still covered with dew, you see,
Dew that the dawn wind froze here on my face.
Let my weariness lie down at your feet,
And dream of the dear moments that shed grace.
Let my head loll here on your young breast
Still ringing with your last kisses blessed,
Allow this departure of the great tempest,
And let me sleep now, a little, while you rest.
(Romances Sans Paroles: Aquarelles, Spleen)
And the ivy was so black.
Dear, at a turn of your head
My despair flooded back.
The sky was too blue, and too tender,
The sea too green, air no force.
I always fear – it must be remembered,
Some atrocious act of yours.
I’m tired of holly with varnished leaves
And shivering boxwood too,
And the countryside’s infinity
All things, alas, but you!
(Romances Sans Paroles: Aquarelles, J’ai
peur d’un baiser)
Like the kiss of a bee.
I suffer like this
And wake endlessly.
I’m afraid of a kiss!
Yet I love Kate
And her sweet gaze.
She’s delicate
With a long pale face.
Oh! How I love Kate!
It’s Saint Valentine’s Day!
I must, I don’t dare
Tomorrow, they say…
It’s a dreadful affair
Is Saint Valentine’s Day!
She’s promised to me,
Fortuitously!
But the difficulty
For a lover, poor he,
With his darling to be!
(Romances Sans Paroles: Streets)
I loved, above all, her pretty eyes
Brighter than stars in the skies,
I loved her malicious eyes likewise.
Let’s dance a jig!
She for sure, she knew the art
Of breaking a poor lover’s heart,
How charmingly she played the part.
Let’s dance a jig!
But I find it even better
That kiss of her mouth in flower
Now, in my heart, she’s a dead letter.
Let’s dance a jig!
I recall, oh I recall
The hours, the words we let fall,
And this the very best of all.
Let’s dance a jig!
(Sagesse: Bk III,VI)
So blue, so calm!
A tree above the roof
Waves its palm.
The bell in the sky you see
Gently rings.
A bird on the tree you see
Sadly sings.
My God, my God, life’s there,
Simple and sweet.
A peaceful rumbling there,
The town’s at our feet.
– What have you done, O you there
Who endlessly cry,
Say: what have you done there
With youth gone by?
(Sagesse: Bk III, X)
Have moved me, swayed me, made me pity.
Ah, most when dark slumbers take me,
When sheets stripe the skin, oppress the hand.
And how weak in tomorrow’s fever
Still warm from the bath that withers
Like a bird on a rooftop that shivers!
And feet, in pain from the road forever,
And the chest, bruised by a double-blow,
And the mouth, still a bleeding wound,
And the trembling flesh, a fragile mound,
And the eyes, poor eyes, so lovely that so
Hint at the sorrow of seeing the end!…
Sad body! So frail, so tormented a friend!
(Jadis et Naguère: Pierrot)
Mocking ancestral portraits overhead;
His gaiety, alas, is, like his candle, dead –
And his spectre haunts us now, thin as a rail.
There, in the terror of endless lightning,
His pale blouse, a cold wind blows, takes shape
Like a winding sheet, and his mouth agape
Seems to howl at the blind worms’ gnawing.
With the sound of a night-bird’s passing grace,
His white sleeves mark out vaguely in space
Wild foolish signs to which no one replies.
His eyes are vast holes where phosphorus burns,
And his make-up renders more frightful in turn
His bloodless face and sharp nose, of one who dies.
(Jadis et Naguère: Art Poétique)
For Charles Morice
The Imbalanced preferred
Vaguer more soluble in air
Nothing weighty, fixed therein.
And don’t go choosing your words
Without some confusion of vision:
Nothing’s dearer than shadowy verse
Where Precision weds Indecision.
It’s beautiful eyes concealed by veils,
It’s a broad day quivering at
It’s the blue disorder of bright stars
In autumn skies, cool, with no moon!
For we always desire Nuance,
Not Colour, nuance evermore!
Oh, nuance alone can wed
Dream with dream, flute with horn!
From murderous Epigrams flee,
Cruel Wit and laughter impure
That brings tears to the high Azure,
And all that base garlic cuisine!
Take eloquence, wring its neck!
You’d do well, while you’re in flow,
To make Rhyme a fraction wiser.
If we don’t look out, where will it go?
Oh who’ll tell of the wrongs of Rhyme?
What mad Negro, or tone-deaf child,
Created this penny jewel, this crime,
That rings hollow, false under the file?
Music once more and forever!
Let your line be a thing so light,
It feels like a soul that soars in flight
To new skies and fresh lovers.
Let your line be finest adventure
Afloat on the tense dawn wind
That goes wakening thyme and mint…
All the rest – is literature.
(Jadis Et Naguère: Circonspection)
Under this great tree where the breeze dies
Beneath grey branches, in broken sighs,
That the soft, tender moonlight caresses.
Motionless, and lowering our eyes,
Not thinking, dreaming. Let love that tires
Have its moment, and happiness that expires,
Our hair brushed by the owl as it flies.
Let’s forget to hope. Discreet, content,
So the soul of each of us stays intent
On this calm, this quiet death of the sun.
We rest, silent, in a peaceful nocturne:
It’s wrong to disturb his sleep, this one,
Nature, the god, fierce and taciturn.
(Amour: Parsifal)
For Jules Tellier
Chatter, amusing lust – and his inclination,
A virgin boy’s, towards the Flesh, tempted
To love their little tits and gentle babble;
He’s conquered lovely Woman, of subtle
Heart, showing her cool arms, provoking breast;
He’s conquered Hell, returned to his tent,
With a weighty trophy on boyish arm,
With the lance that pierced the sacred Side!
He’s cured the king, here he’s king, abides,
And priest of the quintessential holy Treasure.
Worships in golden robes, a symbol, glory’s home,
Vessel where the true Blood shines, the pure,
– And, O those children’s voices that sing in the dome!
Note: The last line is quoted by Eliot, in French, in The Wasteland (with reference to the
Fisher King).
Then,
a child, I dreamt of the Koh-i-Noor,
Memory,
memory, what do you want of me? Autumn.
Ah!
Fond speech! And the first mistresses!
With
sweetness, with sweetness, with sweetness!
I
often have this dream, strange, penetrating,
The
moon was shedding her plates of zinc
The
moon is red on the foggy horizon;
Your
soul is the choicest of countries
High
heels fought with their long dresses,
Each
shell, encrusted, we see,
An
ancient faun of terra-cotta
Last
night’s wind saw Cupid’s overthrow,
In
the lonely old park’s frozen glass
With
her dress of grey-green frills,
The
noise from bars, the pavement’s mire,
You
see we need to pardon everything.
The
piano kissed by a delicate hand
Turning,
turning, fine horses you go,
I
see you, still. I opened the door.
Here
are the fruits, the flowers, the leaves, the wands,
Sadness,
the bodily weariness of man,
This
is no moonstruck dreamer of tales
Give
me your hand, still your breath, let’s rest
Parsifal
has conquered the girls, their sweet