After reading Arthur Rimbaud's poetry a few summers ago, naturally the next step is the work of Paul Verlaine. It's hard for history to get over a love affair. Heloise and Abelard are still trying to live down their fling.
"Lovers' Chat" Paul Verlaine
In the drear park, beneath a chill, bleak sky,
Two shapes, two silhouettes come passing by.
Lifeless their eyes, formless their lips; and they
Speak low, and muffled are the words they say.
In the drear park, beneath a chill, bleak sky,
Two phantom figures talk of days gone by.
"Do you remember how our souls would ache
With bliss?" "Why ask? What difference does it make?"
"Do I still haunt your dreams, like long ago?
Does my mere name still make your heart pound?" "No."
"Oh, for those wondrous days, the ecstacy,
Kiss upon kiss, pressed lips to lips!" "Maybe"
"How high our hopes, how blue the sky, outspread!
Dark now the sky, and, humbled, hope has fled!"
Treading the weeds, they talked the time away,
And night alone heard what they had to say.
"In the Style of Paul Verlaine" Paul Verlaine
It’s the moonlight's fault if I put on
My night-mask; Saturn's fault, too, it is—
Pouring from that gloomy urn of his—
And those moons' too: moons, moons, on and on...
Songs without words, that together sound
Cool, discordant chords, eager to smart
This insipid, dull, lackluster heart,
O the chill, the shudder in their sound!
No, it's not as if you've not made up
With the one who vexed you: unconcerned,
I forgive my childhood, now returned,
Face still pert, though rather much made up.
I forgive that lie I lived—ah me!—
For the well-worn pleasure, tedious,
Droll, with which my leisure, ponderous,
Not without its pains, injected me.
My favorite line is from the poem "Yes, despite your cruel excess..." and has already been incorporated in the title line above:
