Poems of Paul Verlaine Part 8

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 hus.h.i.+ng 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 hus.h.i.+ng wind that ranges still Rocks to a whispered sleepsong languidly The bird lamenting and the s.h.i.+vering 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 cla.s.sic, 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!

ePILOGUE

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 s.h.i.+ne!-- 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 pa.s.sing 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 G.o.ddess, mighty and august, Our only pa.s.sion,--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 Pa.s.sion,--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 G.o.ds, 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 n.o.ble 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!