Poems of Paul Verlaine
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Paul Verlaine >> Poems of Paul Verlaine
I still hear, still I see! O worshipped rule
Of God! I know at last how comfortful
To hear and see! I see, I hear alway!
O innocence, O hope! Lowly and mild,
How I shall love you, sweet hands of my child,
Whose task shall be to close our eyes one day!
"SON, THOU MUST LOVE ME! SEE--" MY SAVIOUR SAID
"Son, thou must love me! See--" my Saviour said,
"My heart that glows and bleeds, my wounded side,
My hurt feet that the Magdalene, wet-eyed,
Clasps kneeling, and my tortured arms outspread
"To bear thy sins. Look on the cross, stained red!
The nails, the sponge, that, all, thy soul shall guide
To love on earth where flesh thrones in its pride,
My Body and Blood alone, thy Wine and Bread.
"Have I not loved thee even unto death,
O brother mine, son in the Holy Ghost?
Have I not suffered, as was writ I must,
"And with thine agony sobbed out my breath?
Hath not thy nightly sweat bedewed my brow,
O lamentable friend that seek'st me now?"
[Illustration: "Mon Dieu M'a Dit."]
HOPE SHINES--AS IN A STABLE A WISP OF STRAW
Hope shines--as in a stable a wisp of straw.
Fear not the wasp drunk with his crazy flight!
Through some chink always, see, the moted light!
Propped on your hand, you dozed--But let me draw
Cool water from the well for you, at least,
Poor soul! There, drink! Then sleep. See, I remain,
And I will sing a slumberous refrain,
And you shall murmur like a child appeased.
Noon strikes. Approach not, Madam, pray, or call....
He sleeps. Strange how a woman's light footfall
Re-echoes through the brains of grief-worn men!
Noon strikes. I bade them sprinkle in the room.
Sleep on! Hope shines--a pebble in the gloom.
--When shall the Autumn rose re-blossom,--when?
SLEEP, DARKSOME, DEEP
Sleep, darksome, deep,
Doth on me fall:
Vain hopes all, sleep,
Sleep, yearnings all!
Lo, I grow blind!
Lo, right and wrong
Fade to my mind....
O sorry song!
A cradle, I,
Rocked in a grave:
Speak low, pass by,
Silence I crave!
[Illustration: Le Ciel et Les Toits.]
THE SKY-BLUE SMILES ABOVE THE ROOF
The sky-blue smiles above the roof
Its tenderest;
A green tree rears above the roof
Its waving crest.
The church-bell in the windless sky
Peaceably rings,
A skylark soaring in the sky
Endlessly sings.
My God, my God, all life is there,
Simple and sweet;
The soothing bee-hive murmur there
Comes from the street!
What have you done, O you that weep
In the glad sun,--
Say, with your youth, you man that weep,
What have you done?
IT IS YOU
It is you, it is you, poor better thoughts!
The needful hope, shame for the ancient blots,
Heart's gentleness with mind's severity,
And vigilance, and calm, and constancy,
And all!--But slow as yet, though well awake;
Though sturdy, shy; scarce able yet to break
The spell of stifling night and heavy dreams.
One comes after the other, and each seems
Uncouther, and all fear the moonlight cold.
"Thus, sheep when first they issue from the fold,
Come,--one, then two, then three. The rest delay,
With lowered heads, in stupid, wondering way,
Waiting to do as does the one that leads.
He stops, they stop in turn, and lay their heads
Across his back, simply, not knowing why."*
Your shepherd, O my fair flock, is not I,--
It is a better, better far, who knows
The reasons, He that so long kept you close,
But timely with His own hand set you free.
Him follow,--light His staff. And I shall be,
Beneath his voice still raised to comfort you,
I shall be, I, His faithful dog, and true.
* Dante, Purgatorio.
'TIS THE FEAST OF CORN
'Tis the feast of corn, 'tis the feast of bread,
On the dear scene returned to, witnessed again!
So white is the light o'er the reapers shed
Their shadows fall pink on the level grain.
The stalked gold drops to the whistling flight
Of the scythes, whose lightning dives deep, leaps clear;
The plain, labor-strewn to the confines of sight,
Changes face at each instant, gay and severe.
All pants, all is effort and toil 'neath the sun,
The stolid old sun, tranquil ripener of wheat,
Who works o'er our haste imperturbably on
To swell the green grape yon, turning it sweet.
Work on, faithful sun, for the bread and the wine,
Feed man with the milk of the earth, and bestow
The frank glass wherein unconcern laughs divine,--
Ye harvesters, vintagers, work on, aglow!
For from the flour's fairest, and from the vine's best,
Fruit of man's strength spread to earth's uttermost,
God gathers and reaps, to His purposes blest,
The Flesh and the Blood for the chalice and host!
Jadis et Naguère
Jadis
PROLOGUE
Off, be off, now, graceless pack:
Get you gone, lost children mine:
Your release is earned in fine:
The Chimaera lends her back.
Huddling on her, go, God-sped,
As a dream-horde crowds and cowers
Mid the shadowy curtain-flowers
Round a sick man's haunted bed.
Hold! My hand, unfit before,
Feeble still, but feverless,
And which palpitates no more
Save with a desire to bless,
Blesses you, O little flies
Of my black suns and white nights.
Spread your rustling wings, arise,
Little griefs, little delights,
Hopes, despairs, dreams foul and fair,
All!--renounced since yesterday
By my heart that quests elsewhere....
Ite, aegri somnia!
LANGUEUR
I am the Empire in the last of its decline,
That sees the tall, fair-haired Barbarians pass,--the while
Composing indolent acrostics, in a style
Of gold, with languid sunshine dancing in each line.
The solitary soul is heart-sick with a vile
Ennui. Down yon, they say, War's torches bloody shine.
Alas, to be so faint of will, one must resign
The chance of brave adventure in the splendid file,--
Of death, perchance! Alas, so lagging in desire!
Ah, all is drunk! Bathyllus, hast done laughing, pray?
Ah, all is drunk,--all eaten! Nothing more to say!
Alone, a vapid verse one tosses in the fire;
Alone, a somewhat thievish slave neglecting one;
Alone, a vague disgust of all beneath the sun!
Naguère
[Illustration: "Crépuscule du Soir Mystique."]
PROLOGUE
Glimm'ring twilight things are these,
Visions of the end of night.
Truth, thou lightest them, I wis,
Only with a distant light,
Whitening through the hated shade
In such grudging dim degrees,
One must doubt if they be made
By the moon among the trees,
Or if these uncertain ghosts
Shall take body bye and bye,
And uniting with the hosts
Tented by the azure sky,
Framed by Nature's setting meet,--
Offer up in one accord
From the heart's ecstatic heat,
Incense to the living Lord!
Parallèlement
IMPRESSION FAUSSE
Dame mouse patters
Black against the shadow grey;
Dame mouse patters
Grey against the black.
Hear the bed-time bell!
Sleep forthwith, good prisoners;
Hear the bed-time bell!
You must go to sleep.
No disturbing dream!
Think of nothing but your loves:
No disturbing dream,
Of the fair ones think!
Moonlight clear and bright!
Some one of the neighbors snores;
Moonlight clear and bright--
He is troublesome.
Comes a pitchy cloud
Creeping o'er the faded moon;
Comes a pitchy cloud--
See the grey dawn creep!
Dame mouse patters
Pink across an azure ray;
Dame mouse patters. . . .
Sluggards, up! 'tis day!
Poèmes Saturniens
PROLOGUE
The Sages of old time, well worth our own,
Believed--and it has been disproved by none--
That destinies in Heaven written are,
And every soul depends upon a star.
(Many have mocked, without remembering
That laughter oft is a misguiding thing,
This explanation of night's mystery.)
Now all that born beneath Saturnus be,--
Red planet, to the necromancer dear,--
Inherit, ancient magic-books make clear,
Good share of spleen, good share of wretchedness.
Imagination, wakeful, vigorless,
In them makes the resolves of reason vain.
The blood within them, subtle as a bane,
Burning as lava, scarce, flows ever fraught
With sad ideals that ever come to naught.
Such must Saturnians suffer, such must die,--
If so that death destruction doth imply,--
Their lives being ordered in this dismal sense
By logic of a malign Influence.
Melancholia
NEVERMORE
Remembrance, what wilt thou with me? The year
Declined; in the still air the thrush piped clear,
The languid sunshine did incurious peer
Among the thinned leaves of the forest sere.
We were alone, and pensively we strolled,
With straying locks and fancies, when, behold
Her turn to let her thrilling gaze enfold,
And ask me in her voice of living gold,
Her fresh young voice, "What was thy happiest day?"
I smiled discreetly for all answer, and
Devotedly I kissed her fair white hand.
--Ah, me! The earliest flowers, how sweet are they!
And in how exquisite a whisper slips
The earliest "Yes" from well-beloved lips!
APRÈS TROIS ANS
When I had pushed the narrow garden-door,
Once more I stood within the green retreat;
Softly the morning sunshine lighted it,
And every flow'r a humid spangle wore.
Nothing is changed. I see it all once more:
The vine-clad arbor with its rustic seat. . . .
The waterjet still plashes silver sweet,
The ancient aspen rustles as of yore.
The roses throb as in a bygone day,
As they were wont, the tall proud lilies sway.
Each bird that lights and twitters is a friend.
I even found the Flora standing yet,
Whose plaster crumbles at the alley's end,
--Slim, 'mid the foolish scent of mignonette.
MON RÊVE FAMILIER
Oft do I dream this strange and penetrating dream:
An unknown woman, whom I love, who loves me well,
Who does not every time quite change, nor yet quite dwell
The same,--and loves me well, and knows me as I am.
For she knows me! My heart, clear as a crystal beam
To her alone, ceases to be inscrutable
To her alone, and she alone knows to dispel
My grief, cooling my brow with her tears' gentle stream.
Is she of favor dark or fair?--I do not know.
Her name? All I remember is that it doth flow
Softly, as do the names of them we loved and lost.
Her eyes are like the statues',--mild and grave and wide;
And for her voice she has as if it were the ghost
Of other voices,--well-loved voices that have died.
A UNE FEMME
To you these lines for the consoling grace
Of your great eyes wherein a soft dream shines,
For your pure soul, all-kind!--to you these lines
From the black deeps of mine unmatched distress.
'Tis that the hideous dream that doth oppress
My soul, alas! its sad prey ne'er resigns,
But like a pack of wolves down mad inclines
Goes gathering heat upon my reddened trace!
I suffer, oh, I suffer cruelly!
So that the first man's cry at Eden lost
Was but an eclogue surely to my cry!
And that the sorrows, Dear, that may have crossed
Your life, are but as swallows light that fly
--Dear!--in a golden warm September sky.
Paysages Tristes
CHANSON D'AUTOMNE
Leaf-strewing gales
Utter low wails
Like violins,--
Till on my soul
Their creeping dole
Stealthily wins....
Days long gone by!
In such hour, I,
Choking and pale,
Call you to mind,--
Then like the wind
Weep I and wail.
And, as by wind
Harsh and unkind,
Driven by grief,
Go I, here, there,
Recking not where,
Like the dead leaf.
LE ROSSIGNOL
Like to a swarm of birds, with jarring cries
Descend on me my swarming memories;
Light mid the yellow leaves, that shake and sigh,
Of the bowed alder--that is even I!--
Brooding its shadow in the violet
Unprofitable river of Regret.
They settle screaming--Then the evil sound,
By the moist wind's impatient hushing drowned,
Dies by degrees, till nothing more is heard
Save the lone singing of a single bird,
Save the clear voice--O singer, sweetly done!--
Warbling the praises of the Absent One....
And in the silence of a summer night
Sultry and splendid, by a late moon's light
That sad and sallow peers above the hill,
The humid hushing wind that ranges still
Rocks to a whispered sleepsong languidly
The bird lamenting and the shivering tree.
Caprices
IL BACIO
Kiss! Hollyhock in Love's luxuriant close!
Brisk music played on pearly little keys,
In tempo with the witching melodies
Love in the ardent heart repeating goes.
Sonorous, graceful Kiss, hail! Kiss divine!
Unequalled boon, unutterable bliss!
Man, bent o'er thine enthralling chalice, Kiss,
Grows drunken with a rapture only thine!
Thou comfortest as music does, and wine,
And grief dies smothered in thy purple fold.
Let one greater than I, Kiss, and more bold,
Rear thee a classic, monumental line.
Humble Parisian bard, this infantile
Bouquet of rhymes I tender half in fear....
Be gracious, and in guerdon, on the dear
Red lips of One I know, alight and smile!
ÉPILOGUE
I
The sun, less hot, looks from a sky more clear;
The roses in their sleepy loveliness
Nod to the cradling wind. The atmosphere
Enfolds us with a sister's tenderness.
For once hath Nature left the splendid throne
Of her indifference, and through the mild
Sun-gilded air of Autumn, clement grown,
Descends to man, her proud, revolted child.
She takes, to wipe the tears upon our face,
Her azure mantle sown with many a star;
And her eternal soul, her deathless grace,
Strengthen and calm the weak heart that we are.
The waving of the boughs, the lengthened line
Of the horizon, full of dreamy hues
And scattered songs, all,--sing it, sail, or shine!--
To-day consoles, delivers!--Let us muse.
II
So, then this book is closed. Dear Fancies mine,
That streaked my grey sky with your wings of light,
And passing fanned my burning brow, benign,--
Return, return to your blue Infinite!
Thou, ringing Rhyme, thou, Verse that smooth didst glide,
Ye, throbbing Rhythms, ye, musical Refrains,
And Memories, and Dreams, and ye beside
Fair Figures called to life with anxious pains,
We needs must part. Until the happier day
When Art, our Lord, his thralls shall re-unite,
Companions sweet, Farewell and Wellaway,
Fly home, ye may, to your blue Infinite!
And true it is, we spared not breath or force,
And our good pleasure, like foaming steed
Blind with the madness of his earliest course,
Of rest within the quiet shade hath need.
--For always have we held thee, Poesy,
To be our Goddess, mighty and august,
Our only passion,--Mother calling thee,
And holding Inspiration in mistrust.
III
Ah, Inspiration, splendid, dominant,
Egeria with the lightsome eyes profound,
Sudden Erato, Genius quick to grant,
Old picture Angel of the gilt background,
Muse,--ay, whose voice is powerful indeed,
Since in the first come brain it makes to grow
Thick as some dusty yellow roadside weed,
A gardenful of poems none did sow,--
Dove, Holy Ghost, Delirium, Sacred Fire,
Transporting Passion,--seasonable queen!--
Gabriel and lute, Latona's son and lyre,--
Ah, Inspiration, summoned at sixteen!
What we have need of, we, the Poets True,
That not believe in Gods, and yet revere,
That have no halo, hold no golden clue,
For whom no Beatrix leaves her radiant sphere,
We, that do chisel words like chalices,
And moving verses shape with unmoved mind,
Whom wandering in groups by evening seas,
In musical converse ye scarce shall find,--
What we need is, in midnight hours dim-lit,
Sleep daunted, knowledge earned,--more knowledge still!
Is Faust's brow, of the wood-cuts, sternly knit,
Is stubborn Perseverance, and is Will!
Is Will eternal, holy, absolute,
That grasps--as doth a noble bird of prey
The steaming flanks of the foredoomed brute,--
Its project, and with it,--skyward, away!
What we need, we, is fixedness intense,
Unequalled effort, strife that shall not cease,
Is night, the bitter night of labor, whence
Arises, sun-like, slow, the Master-piece!
Let our Inspired, hearts by an eye-shot tined,
Sway with the birch-tree to all winds that blow,
Poor things! Art knows not the divided mind--
Speak, Milo's Venus, is she stone or no?
We therefore, carve we with the chisel Thought
The pure block of the Beautiful, and gain
From out the marble cold where it was not,
Some starry-chitoned statue without stain,
That one far day, Posterity, new Morn,
Enkindling with a golden-rosy flame
Our Work, new Memnon, shall to ears unborn
Make quiver in the singing air our name!