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Selected Poems
Verlaine ranks alongside Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Rimbaud as one of the most influential poets of late nineteenth-century France. Remarkable not only for his exquisitely crafted verse, Verlaine is also the poet of strong emotions and appetites, with an unrivalled gift for the sheer music of poetry, and an inventive approach to its technique. This bilingual edition provides the most comprehensive selection of his poetry yet, offering some 170 poems in lively and fresh translations. It also offers a lucid introduction which illuminates Verlaine's poetic form within the context of French Impressionism and the poetry of sensation.
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1909
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About the author
Paul Verlaine
783 books417 followersPaul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.
Despite Rimbaud admiring his poetry, these poets had a stormy affair which led to Verlaine's incarceration after shooting Rimbaud. This incident indirectly preceded his re-conversion to Roman Catholicism.
Verlaine's last years were particularly marked by alcoholism, drug addiction and poverty.
His poems have inspired many composers, such as Chopin, Fauré and Poldowski.
Art Poétique describes his decadent style and alludes to the relevance of nuances and veils in poetry.
Despite Rimbaud admiring his poetry, these poets had a stormy affair which led to Verlaine's incarceration after shooting Rimbaud. This incident indirectly preceded his re-conversion to Roman Catholicism.
Verlaine's last years were particularly marked by alcoholism, drug addiction and poverty.
His poems have inspired many composers, such as Chopin, Fauré and Poldowski.
Art Poétique describes his decadent style and alludes to the relevance of nuances and veils in poetry.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
October 5, 2017
Like a loud flight of birds, dark complexity,
All my memories beating down on me,
Beating down through the yellow foliage
Of my heart’s bent alder-trunk, its gaze
Silvered violet in the lake of Regret,
Whose melancholy is still flowing yet,
Beat down, and then the evil murmur
That a moist rising breeze quells there,
Dies away by degrees in the leaves, so
In an instant you will hear no more, oh,
No more than a voice extolling the Absent,
No more than the voice – oh, languishment! –
Of the bird, my First Love, that still sings
As it did long ago on those first evenings;
And below the sad splendour of the moon
Rising in pale solemnity, a June
Night, melancholy, heavy with summer,
Full of silence and darkness, in the azure
That a gentle wind brushes, rocks asleep
The tree that trembles, the nightingale that weeps.
All my memories beating down on me,
Beating down through the yellow foliage
Of my heart’s bent alder-trunk, its gaze
Silvered violet in the lake of Regret,
Whose melancholy is still flowing yet,
Beat down, and then the evil murmur
That a moist rising breeze quells there,
Dies away by degrees in the leaves, so
In an instant you will hear no more, oh,
No more than a voice extolling the Absent,
No more than the voice – oh, languishment! –
Of the bird, my First Love, that still sings
As it did long ago on those first evenings;
And below the sad splendour of the moon
Rising in pale solemnity, a June
Night, melancholy, heavy with summer,
Full of silence and darkness, in the azure
That a gentle wind brushes, rocks asleep
The tree that trembles, the nightingale that weeps.
September 16, 2019
This poetry collection by Verlaine, who ranks with Baudelaire and Rimbaud as one of the most outstanding poets of late nineteenth-century France, captured my attention with its unique craftsmanship:
Music, more music, always music!
Create verse which lifts and flies away,
Verse of a soul that has taken off
Into other stratospheres of love.
I read poetry for language, to listen to the rhythm and sound, to sense the metres. This is one of those instances where I couldn't help but become a bit of a poetry nerd. At the risk of sounding too technical, I was surprised to see that the metres in most of these poems were determined by the syllables per line, and not by the number of beats or stresses. I guess this is why I love reading poetry from different continents and eras, why I fall easily for bilingual collections (like this one), so that I can compare and learn. Language in poetry generally fascinates.
In comparing the French poem to its English translation, one senses the distinct organization of the French line of poetry. These poems are conservative with technique. In some instances, even when Verlaine is ambitious with parisyllabic lines, he sticks to a set amount of syllables per line (nine in this case):
Imagine fine eyes behind a veil,
Imagine the shimmer of high noon,
Imagine, in skies cooled for autumn,
Blue entanglements of lucent stars.
The adherence to style and framework is alluring. For example, on the surface, the words in this stanza from "Brussels" are arranged nicely, but if one was to pay attention to the metres in the first and fourth lines (or second and third) one notices that the parallel arrangement carries the same syllabic metres, producing a different kind of sound:
I drift in a languor of dreams,
Becalmed in monotone air
And hardly even sad, so much
Does this early autumn picture fade.
If you love story-telling in your poetry, you won't find them here. These poems seem more conceptual, abstract. Verlaine was said to be both delicate and callous; his poems are reflections of his contradictions. His translator, Martin Sorrell, says he's "both a good and a bad poet, but at one and the same time, in tandem." Take what you may from this.
Music, more music, always music!
Create verse which lifts and flies away,
Verse of a soul that has taken off
Into other stratospheres of love.
I read poetry for language, to listen to the rhythm and sound, to sense the metres. This is one of those instances where I couldn't help but become a bit of a poetry nerd. At the risk of sounding too technical, I was surprised to see that the metres in most of these poems were determined by the syllables per line, and not by the number of beats or stresses. I guess this is why I love reading poetry from different continents and eras, why I fall easily for bilingual collections (like this one), so that I can compare and learn. Language in poetry generally fascinates.
In comparing the French poem to its English translation, one senses the distinct organization of the French line of poetry. These poems are conservative with technique. In some instances, even when Verlaine is ambitious with parisyllabic lines, he sticks to a set amount of syllables per line (nine in this case):
Imagine fine eyes behind a veil,
Imagine the shimmer of high noon,
Imagine, in skies cooled for autumn,
Blue entanglements of lucent stars.
The adherence to style and framework is alluring. For example, on the surface, the words in this stanza from "Brussels" are arranged nicely, but if one was to pay attention to the metres in the first and fourth lines (or second and third) one notices that the parallel arrangement carries the same syllabic metres, producing a different kind of sound:
I drift in a languor of dreams,
Becalmed in monotone air
And hardly even sad, so much
Does this early autumn picture fade.
If you love story-telling in your poetry, you won't find them here. These poems seem more conceptual, abstract. Verlaine was said to be both delicate and callous; his poems are reflections of his contradictions. His translator, Martin Sorrell, says he's "both a good and a bad poet, but at one and the same time, in tandem." Take what you may from this.
April 24, 2013
OUP edition, translated by Martin Sorrell
I didn't analyse it. I didn't read the French - just occasionally glimpsed how much prettier the structures and rhymes were, and if this was this good even in English, was it the perfectest thing in all French? I had thought I was stuck with this translation but a page or two in, I was lolling around blissfully in it.
Like a dream I'd actually want to wake up in.
(Not that I am, thankfully, one for often waking in cold-sweat nightmares, but this is a South Seas holiday from the usual sleepful scenarios of impossible work or impending illness or having to marry someone who repels me.)
It's like basking in the sun feeling lithe, animalic and ethereal.
(unbothered by my summer SAD or hiding the bits that had been having IPL, or things that get to everyone like sunburn and the goop that keeps it away, and how to keep reading on the lawn without one arm going to sleep.)
And I suppose the awkward and the mundane is just what Paul Verlaine rarely mentions. Even the grubby is exquisitely beautiful here. There are so many times I'd have loved to quote these.
There is something I can't explain about the way these are written, that over and over led me to revel in things which in other works might upset me at the moment ... I think it may be in part because poetry is so often a one-to-one intimate monologue, not characters talking to or about one another.
Not that every single poem is perfect. It's hard to know whether some of the few squibs were due to translation or original, but most of the wordier, clunkier religious verses from Amour disappointed me, even if they did capture a little more of the felt sense of faith than much else does.
I very much like reading poetry at the moment; I'm not sure I've ever sought it out quite so much. Most prose (and writing it's worse) feels too cluttered and seems to have awkward corners sticking out everywhere, but poetry is the essence.
Over the past twenty years, dozens of people - some I'd met and more I hadn't - recommended P. Verlaine and the other French Symbolist poets (who are simply not difficult as I thought they would be, though I'm sure you can find as much complexity as you like)... I keep having to write the poet's initial or first name here because "Verlaine" to me on its own still means a friend's old username before it means the nineteenth century maudit... Strange then that it was because of Bruce Robinson and my temporary rebound-crush on him that I actually bought this book. Fickle as I can be, I may not be quite so much of a fan now (well, at least I know enough to have since the age of 30 eschewed real-life rebound and the hurt it makes me inflict) but this book was a wonderful thing to have finally found as a result.
I didn't analyse it. I didn't read the French - just occasionally glimpsed how much prettier the structures and rhymes were, and if this was this good even in English, was it the perfectest thing in all French? I had thought I was stuck with this translation but a page or two in, I was lolling around blissfully in it.
Like a dream I'd actually want to wake up in.
(Not that I am, thankfully, one for often waking in cold-sweat nightmares, but this is a South Seas holiday from the usual sleepful scenarios of impossible work or impending illness or having to marry someone who repels me.)
It's like basking in the sun feeling lithe, animalic and ethereal.
(unbothered by my summer SAD or hiding the bits that had been having IPL, or things that get to everyone like sunburn and the goop that keeps it away, and how to keep reading on the lawn without one arm going to sleep.)
And I suppose the awkward and the mundane is just what Paul Verlaine rarely mentions. Even the grubby is exquisitely beautiful here. There are so many times I'd have loved to quote these.
There is something I can't explain about the way these are written, that over and over led me to revel in things which in other works might upset me at the moment ... I think it may be in part because poetry is so often a one-to-one intimate monologue, not characters talking to or about one another.
Not that every single poem is perfect. It's hard to know whether some of the few squibs were due to translation or original, but most of the wordier, clunkier religious verses from Amour disappointed me, even if they did capture a little more of the felt sense of faith than much else does.
I very much like reading poetry at the moment; I'm not sure I've ever sought it out quite so much. Most prose (and writing it's worse) feels too cluttered and seems to have awkward corners sticking out everywhere, but poetry is the essence.
Over the past twenty years, dozens of people - some I'd met and more I hadn't - recommended P. Verlaine and the other French Symbolist poets (who are simply not difficult as I thought they would be, though I'm sure you can find as much complexity as you like)... I keep having to write the poet's initial or first name here because "Verlaine" to me on its own still means a friend's old username before it means the nineteenth century maudit... Strange then that it was because of Bruce Robinson and my temporary rebound-crush on him that I actually bought this book. Fickle as I can be, I may not be quite so much of a fan now (well, at least I know enough to have since the age of 30 eschewed real-life rebound and the hurt it makes me inflict) but this book was a wonderful thing to have finally found as a result.
September 15, 2022
Sta jos ja da napisem nakon pogovora Stevana Kordica, Albera Ti Bodea, opste enciklopedije Laurus, Arnolada Hauzera, i naravno velikog Danila Kisa. Puno toga su rekli o samoj poeziji, stilovima kojim pliva Pol Verlen ali i o njemu samom. Zato se necu gurati u takvo drustvo, vec cu samo pohvaliti rimu, o da, rimu jer poezija je po meni duboko u svom srcu satkana od rima. Malo je pesnka koji pisu dobru poeziju a da uspesno beze iz tog zagtljaja rime. Velika vecina takvih "pesnika" po meni to i nisu, vecina takvih "pesnika" su ljudi savladani prirodnom potrebom da se izraze ali bez umeca da to i ucine. Bukovski je to uspeo, on i jos jako malo drugih, oni su nasli svoj pesnicki glas koji se rimuje u dusi ali ne i na papiru. Medjutim vratimo se Verlenu, kako bih ponovo pohvalio njegovu rimu i njegov izbor reci! Njegove teme i njegovu volju. Nadam se da ce se "staro" pesnistvo jednoga dana vratiti na velika vrata i potisnuti modernu poeziju, vratiti je u skolske klupe kako bi se nauciala izrazaju. Ucimo od Verlena.
January 19, 2010
"Romances without words,
mystic barcaroles heard,
dear, because your eyes,
color of skies,
because your voice, strange
visions which derange
and trouble the horizon
of my reason,
because the noble perfume
of your pallor's swan-plume
and because of the candor
of your odor,
ah, because all your person-
music imbuing, piercing;
voice, perfume, and nimbs
of dead seraphim-
has, with soft cadences
in its correspondences,
lured my heart's subtlety,
so let it be!"
mystic barcaroles heard,
dear, because your eyes,
color of skies,
because your voice, strange
visions which derange
and trouble the horizon
of my reason,
because the noble perfume
of your pallor's swan-plume
and because of the candor
of your odor,
ah, because all your person-
music imbuing, piercing;
voice, perfume, and nimbs
of dead seraphim-
has, with soft cadences
in its correspondences,
lured my heart's subtlety,
so let it be!"
October 11, 2023
"It weeps in my heart
as it rains on the town.
What languorous hurt
thus pierces my heart?
Oh, sweet sound of rain
on the earth and the roofs!
For a heart dulled with pain,
oh, the song of the rain!
It weeps without reason
in my disheartened heart.
What! there's no treason?
This grief's without reason.
It's far the worst pain
not to know why,
without love or disdain,
my heart has such pain."
"Listen to this music sweet,
weeping but for your delight;
on moss the water's quivering flight
is as nimble and discreet!
The nice was known to you (and dear!),
but it has been veiled of late
like a widow desolate,
yet it still is proud, like her,
and in the long golds of the veil,
which trembles as the autumn blows,
unto the heart astounded shows
truth's star, now hidden, now revealed,
it says, this voice now known again,
that goodness is the goal of life,
that of our hate and envious strife,
past death, nothing shall remain."
as it rains on the town.
What languorous hurt
thus pierces my heart?
Oh, sweet sound of rain
on the earth and the roofs!
For a heart dulled with pain,
oh, the song of the rain!
It weeps without reason
in my disheartened heart.
What! there's no treason?
This grief's without reason.
It's far the worst pain
not to know why,
without love or disdain,
my heart has such pain."
"Listen to this music sweet,
weeping but for your delight;
on moss the water's quivering flight
is as nimble and discreet!
The nice was known to you (and dear!),
but it has been veiled of late
like a widow desolate,
yet it still is proud, like her,
and in the long golds of the veil,
which trembles as the autumn blows,
unto the heart astounded shows
truth's star, now hidden, now revealed,
it says, this voice now known again,
that goodness is the goal of life,
that of our hate and envious strife,
past death, nothing shall remain."
May 4, 2017
Earlier this year I chanced upon Baudelaire, which led, after scholarly Wikipedia searches, to the triune of Rimbaud-Verlaine-Mallarmé. I scooped up Rimbaud’s complete works and couldn’t get very far. Something about reading the rants of a fifteen year old… I couldn’t do it. Rimbaud didn’t have any respect for poetry, which is commendable, I grant him that, but it shows. His Saison d’Enfer is unreadable, at least in translation. It belongs with other works of the Black Speech such as Lautreamont’s Maldoror and Sig Dagerman’s Island of the Doomed: cool idea in theory, but absolutely unreadable as “literature.” Then on to Verlaine. Sigh…
Verlaine will forever be known as the dude that had a steamy love affair with the much younger Rimbaud. There’s even a movie about it starring Leonardo DiCaprio! OMG! Too bad the love in question is, and I quote Verlaine, a chaste love, and amazingly misunderstood, at least as I see it through the actual poetry. What Verlaine should be remembered for is his ambivalence, but ambivalence isn’t really something that awakens the kleos aphthiton now is it? No matter. It is just funny, in a sick, gallows-humor, Baudelaireian kind of way, to think that he got famous for this supposed homosexual relationship, and if you actually read the damn poems it just doesn’t seem that way. All of the pornographic poems (which aren’t very good) are about women. A lot of bums (especially in the smdh-worthy translated title “And Now, Buttocks!”) and some labias, and cunnilingus, but no felash, no dudes, no bumbuggeries of the male persuasion. The one poem that the notes of this edition says proves his gayness is about him being at a party with two hos, one blonde with two different-colored eyes and the other a sexy African babe, and not “giving a damn” about either. Yeah, def a homo. But what do I fucking care? I don’t really: if I had to guess (which is all it will ever be) as to the nature of the Verlaine-Rimbaud bromance it would be thus:
Older poet, Verlaine, has the wife, has the published book, has the bored trappings of bourgeois life. Rimbaud comes into the picture like a bat outta Cleavland, with the audacity to use open verse, drinks to excess, parties all the time, doesn’t give a fuck, and Verlaine sees this kid (handsome, desirable) and thinks, “Man, this dude fucking is poetry!” The two run off cuz Rimbaud says “Fuck middle class life, bro, let’s go drink and party and live like poets!” and Verlaine is all, “Hell yeah, man! Peace out, wifey, you sack,” and then they realize that this kind of lifestyle is for the birds (Rimbaud quits and gets a job by the time he is 21…) and Verlaine is left feeling like, “WTF, bro… WTF is poetry…?”
Whether they boned or not is really beside the point. If the rumor of being gay helped get Verlaine noticed then I guess it’s a good thing overall – there are some really good poems, “Last Hope” is as good as anything by anyone, and his poetic spirit is worth being read.
That is to say, I hope there is a better translation out there. Oxford Classics continues to absolutely blow when rendering French poems into English. You got to love a French title rendered into English as “Footloose and Fancy Free.” Yeah, Martin Sorrel, you get the élan just right! The Oxford Baudelaire edition is terrible, and this one equally so – luckily the French was side-by-side for comparison. A few, of the many many examples:
En manière d’adieux à la poésie ‘personelle’ – the title of a late poem, is translated as “In the ‘farewell to first-person poetry’ style. WTF? What are you, dumb? How about “Goodbye to the poetry of ‘I’” instead, huh, Oxford Classics? Huh, Martin Sorrell? I thought one had to be, like, smarter than the entire planet to even get in to Oxford, let alone edit and translate one of their editions of fine French poetry! Or this:
French version:
Comme on naît, comme on vit, comme on hait, comme on aime!
Oxford Clack version:
The way you’re born live hate love!
Are you kidding me? This is coming from a translator that has a fucking section of the intro entitled Verlaine’s Poetic Form (i) Musicality! The French has musicality. duh-Duh duh-Duh duh-Duh duh-Duh. The English is duhduh duhduh dapdapdap. What is this, Oxyboys? Fucking trap music? GTFO.
There’s more, but whatev. If someone knows of a good Verlaine biography, DM me,plz.
Til then… can I recite “Last Hope”? Let me try… what is poetry anyway… where is the meaning in any of it, at all…….
Verlaine will forever be known as the dude that had a steamy love affair with the much younger Rimbaud. There’s even a movie about it starring Leonardo DiCaprio! OMG! Too bad the love in question is, and I quote Verlaine, a chaste love, and amazingly misunderstood, at least as I see it through the actual poetry. What Verlaine should be remembered for is his ambivalence, but ambivalence isn’t really something that awakens the kleos aphthiton now is it? No matter. It is just funny, in a sick, gallows-humor, Baudelaireian kind of way, to think that he got famous for this supposed homosexual relationship, and if you actually read the damn poems it just doesn’t seem that way. All of the pornographic poems (which aren’t very good) are about women. A lot of bums (especially in the smdh-worthy translated title “And Now, Buttocks!”) and some labias, and cunnilingus, but no felash, no dudes, no bumbuggeries of the male persuasion. The one poem that the notes of this edition says proves his gayness is about him being at a party with two hos, one blonde with two different-colored eyes and the other a sexy African babe, and not “giving a damn” about either. Yeah, def a homo. But what do I fucking care? I don’t really: if I had to guess (which is all it will ever be) as to the nature of the Verlaine-Rimbaud bromance it would be thus:
Older poet, Verlaine, has the wife, has the published book, has the bored trappings of bourgeois life. Rimbaud comes into the picture like a bat outta Cleavland, with the audacity to use open verse, drinks to excess, parties all the time, doesn’t give a fuck, and Verlaine sees this kid (handsome, desirable) and thinks, “Man, this dude fucking is poetry!” The two run off cuz Rimbaud says “Fuck middle class life, bro, let’s go drink and party and live like poets!” and Verlaine is all, “Hell yeah, man! Peace out, wifey, you sack,” and then they realize that this kind of lifestyle is for the birds (Rimbaud quits and gets a job by the time he is 21…) and Verlaine is left feeling like, “WTF, bro… WTF is poetry…?”
Whether they boned or not is really beside the point. If the rumor of being gay helped get Verlaine noticed then I guess it’s a good thing overall – there are some really good poems, “Last Hope” is as good as anything by anyone, and his poetic spirit is worth being read.
That is to say, I hope there is a better translation out there. Oxford Classics continues to absolutely blow when rendering French poems into English. You got to love a French title rendered into English as “Footloose and Fancy Free.” Yeah, Martin Sorrel, you get the élan just right! The Oxford Baudelaire edition is terrible, and this one equally so – luckily the French was side-by-side for comparison. A few, of the many many examples:
En manière d’adieux à la poésie ‘personelle’ – the title of a late poem, is translated as “In the ‘farewell to first-person poetry’ style. WTF? What are you, dumb? How about “Goodbye to the poetry of ‘I’” instead, huh, Oxford Classics? Huh, Martin Sorrell? I thought one had to be, like, smarter than the entire planet to even get in to Oxford, let alone edit and translate one of their editions of fine French poetry! Or this:
French version:
Comme on naît, comme on vit, comme on hait, comme on aime!
Oxford Clack version:
The way you’re born live hate love!
Are you kidding me? This is coming from a translator that has a fucking section of the intro entitled Verlaine’s Poetic Form (i) Musicality! The French has musicality. duh-Duh duh-Duh duh-Duh duh-Duh. The English is duhduh duhduh dapdapdap. What is this, Oxyboys? Fucking trap music? GTFO.
There’s more, but whatev. If someone knows of a good Verlaine biography, DM me,plz.
Til then… can I recite “Last Hope”? Let me try… what is poetry anyway… where is the meaning in any of it, at all…….
February 8, 2013
Sorrell introduces this collection of poems by explaining, “Verlaine spent his life facing in two directions at once, unable to choose one at the expense of the other. The emotional man who yearned for peaceful family life was also the drunken assailant of his mother and his wife; the humble believer in God was also a foul-mouthed blasphemer; the poet with the most delicate touch imaginable was also the author of the most aggressively pornographic verse.” Somewhat autobiographically I believe Verlaine said much the same thing in the closing lines of “To Don Quixote”: The winged standard of Poetry must / Flutter over feeble Reason’s dust. (7)
I frankly found these poems stunning. Clearly Verlaine is a poet who was capable of stunning (and sometimes abhorrent) extremes. Judging the poetry on its own merits, I found this collection (and its translations) frankly incredible. It is among my favorite volumes of poetry.
Verlaine can be whistfully, stunningly romantic, such as in the lines of “Nevermore”: Memories, memories, what do you want of me?
Autumn sent the thrush winging through bland air.
The sun darted monochrome light
Into ochre woodlands where winds howl.
We were alone, walking as in a dream,
She, I hair, thoughts blown by the wind.
Suddenly her haunting look was on me:
‘Which day was most beautiful for you?’
Asked that voice of living gold, soft, fresh, an angel’s
Cadence. I smiled discreetly in reply,
And kissed her white hand with deep reverence.
Ah, the first flowers, how full their perfume is,
What spell the whisper-sound
Of the first yes murmured by beloved lips. (13)
His poetry is best in the closing lines. Witness the following succession of poems. ‘I’m almost scared…” ends with “Bathed in that great happiness, / Whatever sad vicissitudes, / Of knowing always I love the / All, the everything of you. (65) “Birds of the Night” ends with “Sometimes I’m the Stricken Ship / Which lurches unmasted through storms, / Deprived of guiding lights, but / Deep in prayer as it goes down. / Sometimes I die the Sinner’s Death / Who knows he’s damned without a priest. / Gone all hope of absolution, / He writhes in self-inflicted Hell. // But sometimes I know the first Christian’s / Blood-red joy in the lions’ den, / Smiling up at Jesus looking down, / His face and flesh the model of calm. (89) ‘Snow in the mist’ ends with: “The bell’s clear anvil strikes / In the lighted slender tower, / Far from sin and its wages, / Calling us in all our finery, / Summoning us to midnight mass. (235) The last is possible the best summation of this volume.
I frankly found these poems stunning. Clearly Verlaine is a poet who was capable of stunning (and sometimes abhorrent) extremes. Judging the poetry on its own merits, I found this collection (and its translations) frankly incredible. It is among my favorite volumes of poetry.
Verlaine can be whistfully, stunningly romantic, such as in the lines of “Nevermore”: Memories, memories, what do you want of me?
Autumn sent the thrush winging through bland air.
The sun darted monochrome light
Into ochre woodlands where winds howl.
We were alone, walking as in a dream,
She, I hair, thoughts blown by the wind.
Suddenly her haunting look was on me:
‘Which day was most beautiful for you?’
Asked that voice of living gold, soft, fresh, an angel’s
Cadence. I smiled discreetly in reply,
And kissed her white hand with deep reverence.
Ah, the first flowers, how full their perfume is,
What spell the whisper-sound
Of the first yes murmured by beloved lips. (13)
His poetry is best in the closing lines. Witness the following succession of poems. ‘I’m almost scared…” ends with “Bathed in that great happiness, / Whatever sad vicissitudes, / Of knowing always I love the / All, the everything of you. (65) “Birds of the Night” ends with “Sometimes I’m the Stricken Ship / Which lurches unmasted through storms, / Deprived of guiding lights, but / Deep in prayer as it goes down. / Sometimes I die the Sinner’s Death / Who knows he’s damned without a priest. / Gone all hope of absolution, / He writhes in self-inflicted Hell. // But sometimes I know the first Christian’s / Blood-red joy in the lions’ den, / Smiling up at Jesus looking down, / His face and flesh the model of calm. (89) ‘Snow in the mist’ ends with: “The bell’s clear anvil strikes / In the lighted slender tower, / Far from sin and its wages, / Calling us in all our finery, / Summoning us to midnight mass. (235) The last is possible the best summation of this volume.
September 10, 2015
Simpatično. Svaka čast Danilu Kišu na prevodu, ali ja sam čitala Verlena i na francuskom i sve mi se čini da je on jedan od onih rijetkih pjesnika koji bolje zvuče u prevodu. Hoću reći da je po meni Kiš daleko bolji pjesnik od samog Verlena, pa mu svojim prevodilačkim bravurama samo "diže cijenu". Šta ga je uopšte toliko fasciniralo kod Verlena pa da odluči da ga prevodi kad i sam u pogovoru govori o njegovoj nemogućnosti da se odupre Bodlerovom uticaju i uopšte slabom talentu? Nije mi jasno zašto ga iko više čita kada se njegov značaj u istoriji (francuske) književnosti ogleda samo u tome što je otkrio Remboa i Malarmea, pa se "prišlepao". Da, zasija ponekad nešto u tom mulju prosječnosti, ali on već sljedećim stihom uništi i taj najmanji potencijal da pjesma ispadne dobra.
Ali pokušaću da budem fer: Verlen nije jedan od onih pjesnika čiji su stihovi tako loši da ćete im se smijati. Naprotiv! On nema baš nijedan stih koji je loš. Sve je to tehnički savršeno, sjajan versifikator, vrlo muzikalan, forma je tip-top, ali džaba mu sve kad nema dušu, kad nema nijedan stih da je jak, baš jak. I sve je tako prokleto mlako! I ne mogu da razumijem ljude koji vole Verlena. To je kao da volite mlako pivo, a mlaka poezija i mlako pivo ne treba da postoje uopšte. (Ako ste od onih kojima je draže i mlako pivo od nikakvog piva, izvinite, ali meni to ima ukus mokraće - ista stvar i sa poezijom.) Da nisam usamljena u tom mišljenju, navešću kao primjer Montenja, koji je prije skoro pola milenijuma pisao da jedino poeziji nije dozvoljeno da bude osrednja.
Ocjena bi bila niža da nije Kišovog velikog prevodilačkog talenta. Jednostavno ne mogu da podnesem te bljutave pjesnike sa patosom u glasu dok dramatično pjevaju stvari poput O, moj Bože, tvoja me ljubav rani. Nisu ga nadrealisti bez razloga preporučivali "provincijskim profesorima i šiparicama za spomenar sa sparušenim cvijećem". Jedino, eto, Jesenja pesma nije loša.
Ali pokušaću da budem fer: Verlen nije jedan od onih pjesnika čiji su stihovi tako loši da ćete im se smijati. Naprotiv! On nema baš nijedan stih koji je loš. Sve je to tehnički savršeno, sjajan versifikator, vrlo muzikalan, forma je tip-top, ali džaba mu sve kad nema dušu, kad nema nijedan stih da je jak, baš jak. I sve je tako prokleto mlako! I ne mogu da razumijem ljude koji vole Verlena. To je kao da volite mlako pivo, a mlaka poezija i mlako pivo ne treba da postoje uopšte. (Ako ste od onih kojima je draže i mlako pivo od nikakvog piva, izvinite, ali meni to ima ukus mokraće - ista stvar i sa poezijom.) Da nisam usamljena u tom mišljenju, navešću kao primjer Montenja, koji je prije skoro pola milenijuma pisao da jedino poeziji nije dozvoljeno da bude osrednja.
Ocjena bi bila niža da nije Kišovog velikog prevodilačkog talenta. Jednostavno ne mogu da podnesem te bljutave pjesnike sa patosom u glasu dok dramatično pjevaju stvari poput O, moj Bože, tvoja me ljubav rani. Nisu ga nadrealisti bez razloga preporučivali "provincijskim profesorima i šiparicama za spomenar sa sparušenim cvijećem". Jedino, eto, Jesenja pesma nije loša.
August 12, 2018
Verlaine's poems presents some of the most vivid, engrossing descriptions of love I've ever read.
Want to read
January 16, 2026A Book Owned by F. Scott Fitzgerald: https://static-prod.lib.princeton.edu...
September 28, 2007
Verlain is very heavy. I had to read each verse twice or more, to get possibly close to him. One must love Classics to pick up a Verlaine ...
August 2, 2007
I've liked other symolists/decadents/whatever, but Verlaine didn't do it for me. I suppose it could have been the translation, but I doubt it.
Want to read
January 11, 2013I'm feeling the need for a little French decadence in my life. Since this Verlaine is not yet in my possession, I wonder if Audrey Tautou or Marion Cotillard are free tonight...
June 19, 2021
I memorized one of Verlaine’s poems in high school French class and I bought this book so I could look it up again and see how accurate my memory was. Well, “Claire de Lune” isn’t in this collection. Merde. It is on Wikipedia, if you’re curious. However, I did pick up some choice French vocab. For example, “Je ne sais rien de gai comme un enterrement!” (“I know nothing that’s more fun than a burial!”) The translations were, in all seriousness, wonderfully vivid and I enjoyed reading them (even if it did turn out that Verlaine was a major jackhole). My cat , Blanche, who is also a Francophile, enjoyed eating the cover of this book.
September 24, 2019
Martin Sorrell translation.
March 5, 2019
My humble opinion of good poetry books is that they're like bottomless jars of honey. Because you can always return to enjoying them and they never really end, when you can read them again and again and get a new, fuller impression every time you re-read them. Or you can get a whole new idea of them and the meaning they might be carrying every time you re-read them. And whats best is that they're entirely open to your subjective understanding and what you make out of them. Like every great piece of art should be. They may mean a lot and they may mean a little, to me that matters the least, because I most probably am not capable of grasping their original idea anyway. I see endless possibilities of a poem being analysed and experienced over and over again and in countless different ways and that to me makes poetry priceless.
Is there anything that I, a half illiterate lowly mortal, could say that would compliment this divine moment of beauty I had the luck to witness? No, no. Nothing I could possibly say could do this masterpiece any justice. So I'd rather stay silent and enjoy the bits of this bliss that my mind manages to grasp.
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.
___________________________________
In the deserted park, silent and vast,
Erewhile two shadowy glimmering figures passed.
Their lips were colorless, and dead their eyes;
Their words were scarce more audible than sighs.
In the deserted park, silent and vast,
Two spectres conjured up the buried past.
"Our ancient ecstasy, do you recall?"
"Why, pray, should I remember it at all?"
"Does still your heart at mention of me glow?
Do still you see my soul in slumber?" "No!"
"Ah, blessed, blissful days when our lips met!
You loved me so!" "Quite likely,—I forget."
"How sweet was hope, the sky how blue and fair!"
"The sky grew black, the hope became despair."
Thus walked they 'mid the frozen weeds, these dead,
And Night alone o'erheard the things they said.
__________________________________
Is there anything that I, a half illiterate lowly mortal, could say that would compliment this divine moment of beauty I had the luck to witness? No, no. Nothing I could possibly say could do this masterpiece any justice. So I'd rather stay silent and enjoy the bits of this bliss that my mind manages to grasp.
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.
___________________________________
In the deserted park, silent and vast,
Erewhile two shadowy glimmering figures passed.
Their lips were colorless, and dead their eyes;
Their words were scarce more audible than sighs.
In the deserted park, silent and vast,
Two spectres conjured up the buried past.
"Our ancient ecstasy, do you recall?"
"Why, pray, should I remember it at all?"
"Does still your heart at mention of me glow?
Do still you see my soul in slumber?" "No!"
"Ah, blessed, blissful days when our lips met!
You loved me so!" "Quite likely,—I forget."
"How sweet was hope, the sky how blue and fair!"
"The sky grew black, the hope became despair."
Thus walked they 'mid the frozen weeds, these dead,
And Night alone o'erheard the things they said.
__________________________________
July 28, 2023
I understand some French so it was good that they printed each version side-by-side, because my God did this translation not work for me at all. Verlaine's poems are incredibly musical and tightly structured and rhymed, though as the intro explains he does use some unusual emphases and line breaks that pushed French verse forward at the time.
But at the beginning, the translator basically admits to completely punting on trying to rhyme or match Verlaine, instead taking a ton of liberties to express the "essence" of what he was saying. The results are often extremely clunky, dense and almost completely unmelodic... I guess if I were Verlaine scholar maybe I'd appreciate the effort of "modernizing" Verlaine like this vs. other translations that are more faithful (according to the intro), but I don't think this was the right place to start. Really can't recommend it, only gets 3 stars because of Verlaine's actual words being there as well, even if I can't understand them fully.
But at the beginning, the translator basically admits to completely punting on trying to rhyme or match Verlaine, instead taking a ton of liberties to express the "essence" of what he was saying. The results are often extremely clunky, dense and almost completely unmelodic... I guess if I were Verlaine scholar maybe I'd appreciate the effort of "modernizing" Verlaine like this vs. other translations that are more faithful (according to the intro), but I don't think this was the right place to start. Really can't recommend it, only gets 3 stars because of Verlaine's actual words being there as well, even if I can't understand them fully.
September 30, 2023
One of the most purely lyrical of French poets, Verlaine was an initiator of modern word-music and marks a transition between the Romantic poets and the Symbolists. His best poetry broke with the sonorous rhetoric of most of his predecessors and showed that the French language, everyday clichés included, could communicate new shades of human feeling by suggestion and tremulous vagueness that capture the reader by disarming his intellect; words could be used merely for their sound to make a subtler music, an incantatory spell more potent than their everyday meaning. Explicit intellectual or philosophical content is absent from his best work. His discovery of the intimate musicality of the French language was doubtless instinctive, but, during his most creative years, he was a conscious artist constantly seeking to develop his unique gift and “reform” his nation’s poetic expression.
Read
July 24, 2016O triste, triste était mon âme
A cause, à cause d'une femme
Je ne me suis pas consolé
Bien que mon coeur s'en soit allé,
Bien que mon coeur, bien que mon âme
Eussent fui loin de cette femme.
Je ne me suis pas consolé,
Bien que mon coeur s'en soit allé.
Et mon coeur, mon coeur trop sensible
Dit à mon âme: Est-il possible,
Est-il possible, - le fût-il -
Ce fier exil, ce triste exil ?
Mon âme dit à mon coeur: Sais-je
Moi-même que nous veut ce piège
D'être présents bien qu'exilés,
Encore que loin en allés ?
Mon âme dit à mon coeur: Sais-je
Moi-même que nous veut ce piège
D'être présents bien qu'exilés,
Encore que loin en allés ?
____________________________
Que c'est magnifique
A cause, à cause d'une femme
Je ne me suis pas consolé
Bien que mon coeur s'en soit allé,
Bien que mon coeur, bien que mon âme
Eussent fui loin de cette femme.
Je ne me suis pas consolé,
Bien que mon coeur s'en soit allé.
Et mon coeur, mon coeur trop sensible
Dit à mon âme: Est-il possible,
Est-il possible, - le fût-il -
Ce fier exil, ce triste exil ?
Mon âme dit à mon coeur: Sais-je
Moi-même que nous veut ce piège
D'être présents bien qu'exilés,
Encore que loin en allés ?
Mon âme dit à mon coeur: Sais-je
Moi-même que nous veut ce piège
D'être présents bien qu'exilés,
Encore que loin en allés ?
____________________________
Que c'est magnifique
August 27, 2010
i wish i knew french. macintyre's translation focuses squarely on matching the rhythm and rhyme of the originals, but in the process he makes more than a few painfully amateurish word choices. what seems simply and tastefully expressed in the original french (or as far as i can tell, anyway) often turns grandiloquent and drippy in macintyre's english.
i got this for a dollar, so i can't complain too much - as it is, a decent intro to verlaine's sensabilities - but if i were you, i wouldn't pay full price.
i got this for a dollar, so i can't complain too much - as it is, a decent intro to verlaine's sensabilities - but if i were you, i wouldn't pay full price.
May 12, 2008
i read this in high school so it's not exactly fresh in my mind, but i remember verlaine's life and work having a pretty big impact on me at the time. i've always found verlaine's insecurity as a poet whenever comparing his own work to rimbaud's a curious thing. having been exposed to both, verlaine's writing always felt more mature and controlled.
March 29, 2013
Actually, I read the Martin Sorrell translation which Goodreads doesn't seem to recognize. If you'd like to read my review of this & other books, visit me at http://miscmss.blogspot.com/2013/03/s...
November 9, 2007
Don't read this dual-language book if you don't know French as the translation is not very good.
May 21, 2008
Must be read in French. I cannot stress this enough.
November 9, 2009
I suspect that if I could read French, I would actually love these poems.
December 12, 2009
Admirable and inspiring. A highlight to any poetry-lovers read.
Currently reading
January 26, 2012Yet to start reading these translations... I collect translations, just out of curiosity.
May 5, 2017
Verlaine, as a French symbolist, moves me far less than Rimbaud.
October 2, 2012
On the whole, not for me. Though reading in translation probably isn't really reading it.
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