Cythera
(Fêtes Galants)

A summer-house’s lattices sweetly cover our caress, joy the roses cool, our friends: perfume of roses, faint and sweet, blowing on the summer breeze, with her own fragrance blends: as the promise her eyes gave her courage is complete, and her lips yield an exquisite fever: and Love fulfilling all things save Appetite, jams and sorbets here protect us from the ache of hunger.

To Clymène
(Fêtes Galants)

Mystical singing-birds, 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!

Sentimental Conversation
(Fêtes Galants)

In the old lonely park’s frozen glass two dark shadows lately passed. Their lips were slack, their eyes were blurred, the words they spoke were scarcely heard. In the old lonely park’s frozen glass two spectral forms invoked the past. ‘Do you remember 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.

In Her Dress….
(La Bonne Chanson: III)

In her dress of grey-green frills, 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, like some joyous image of all that: her voice, its subtle music’s tone, delightfully accompanying the artless wit of 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 beseeched to be, trembling.

The Moon, White…
(La Bonne Chanson: VI)

The moon, white, shines in the trees: from each bright branch a voice flees under the 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.

The Noise From Bars….
(La Bonne Chanson: XVI)

The noise from bars, the pavement’s mire, ruined sycamores leafing black air: 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 noses of policemen, those drones, roofs dripping, walls sweating, slippery stones, broken asphalt, gutters where sewers blend, behold, my road – with paradise at the end.

It Rains In My Heart…
(Romances Sans Paroles: Arriettes Oubliées I)

‘It rains softly on the town.’
- Rimbaud

It rains in my heart as it rains on the town, what is this art that soaks to my heart? Oh sweet sound of the rain on the earth and the roofs! For a heart dulled again, oh the song of the rain! It rains for no reason in this heart without heart. What? And no treason? A grief without reason? It’s pain’s darkest state not to know why, my heart feels such weight without love, without hate.

You See We Need…
(Romances Sans Paroles: Arriettes Oubliées IV)

You see we need to pardon everything. 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 as we are, if we could blend a childlike gentleness with vague desires of 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.

Oh Sad, Sad…
(Romances Sans Paroles:
Arriettes Oubliées VII)

Oh sad, sad forever my soul because, because of a girl. How can my hurt be assuaged though my heart is disengaged? Though my heart, though my soul are far away from that girl, how can my heart be assuaged though my heart is disengaged? And my over-sensitive heart says to my soul: by what art by what art has it come to be this proud exile, this misery? My soul says to my heart: do I know myself what trapped us or why we’re with her though we were sent away, although we’re far from her today?

I Still See You…
(Romances Sans Paroles: Birds In The Night V)

I still see you. I opened the door. You lay in bed as if you were weary. But, O light body that 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, saddest of all and best it appears. I don’t want to see your smile, or worse your kind eyes, for that reason, or you, in short, who one must curse, exquisite snare: only the ghost of that season.

Spleen
(Romances Sans Paroles)

The roses were all red and the ivy was all black. Dear, at a turn of your head my despair flooded back. The sky is too blue, too tender, the sea too green, the air too soft. 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 and everything, except you!

Circumspection
(Jadis Et Naguère)

Give me your hand, still your breath, let’s rest 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.

Streets
(Romances Sans Paroles)

Let’s dance a jig!
I loved above all her pretty eyes
brighter than the 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 that it’s 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 is the very best of all.

Let’s dance a jig!

Naguere 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!
- Translated by Gertrude Hall

Nevermore
(Poèmes Saturniens: Mélancholia II)

Memory, memory, what do you want of me? Autumn makes the thrush fly through colourless air, and the sun casts a 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. Suddenly, turning her troubling gaze on me, ‘Your loveliest day?’ her voice of living gold, her voice, with its fresh angelic tone, vibrant and 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 that first ‘yes’ from lips that we love!

Wish
(Poèmes Saturniens: Mélancholia IV)

Ah! Fond speech! And the first mistresses! The hair’s gold, the eyes’ blue, the flower of the flesh, and, then, in the scent of the dear body’s mesh the shy spontaneity of caresses! How far away is all of that lightness and all that innocence! Ah, backwards yet to the Spring of regret, the black winters have fled, my disgusts, my boredoms, and 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.

Lassitude
(Poèmes Saturniens: Mélancholia V)

‘For the wars of love a field of feathers’ Gongora With sweetness, with sweetness, with sweetness! 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 too bold! Put your brow on 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!

My Familiar Dream
(Poèmes Saturniens: Mélancholia VI)

I often have this dream, strange and penetrating of a woman, unknown, whom I love, who loves me, and who’s never, each time, the same exactly, nor exactly different, she knows me, she’s loving. Oh 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, of those who have died.

Woman And Cat
(Poèmes Saturniens: Caprices I)

She was playing with her cat: 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.

Song Of The Artless Ones
(Poèmes Saturniens: Caprices III)

We are the artless ones,
hair braided, eyes blue,
we 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 ‘alases’ 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 the
lovers of libertines.

The Innocents
(Fêtes Galants)

High heels fought with their long dresses, 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.

Green
(Romances Sans Paroles: Aquarelles)

Here are the fruits, the flowers, the leaves, the wands, here’s my heart that only beats for your sighs. Don’t shatter them with your snow-white hands, let my poor gifts be pleasing to your eyes. I reach you, still covered with the dew, you see, that the dawn wind froze here on my face. Let my weariness lie down at your feet, and dream of the dear moments that grant release. Let my head loll on your young breast ringing with your last kisses, yes allow this passing of the great tempest, and let me sleep a little while you rest.

Sadness, The Bodily Weariness…
(Sagesse: X)

Sadness, the bodily weariness of man, 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!

Mandoline
The courtly serenaders, The beauteous listeners, Sit idling ’neath the branches A balmy zephyr stirs. It’s Tircis and Aminta, Clitandre,—ever there!— Damis, of melting sonnets To many a frosty fair. Their trailing flowery dresses, Their fine beflowered coats, Their elegance and lightness, And shadows blue,—all floats And mingles,—circling, wreathing, In moonlight opaline, While through the zephyr’s harping Tinkles the mandoline.
-Translated by Gertrude Hall

Mon Reve 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. -Translated by Gertrude Hall