Evening Thought

         
Paul Verlaine

Here on the pale cold grass of exile, lost
Among pine and yew-trees silvered by frost,
Or wandering, like those forms that still command
Our dreams, through the vile Scythian land,
While all around, shepherds of fabulous flocks,
Pale blue-eyed Barbarians roam the rocks,
The poet of the Art of Love, tender Ovid
Sweeps the horizon, his gaze deep and fervid,
And sadly contemplates the immense sea,
Hair grown thin and grey that the stormy
North-winds tangle on wrinkled forehead,
Torn clothes rendering the flesh chilled instead,
Under sparse brows, tired eyes no longer bright,
The beard dense, matted, alas, and almost white!
All those tokens that speak of expiatory
Mourning, a sinister and lamentable story
Of excess love, bitter desire, and more:
The fury, too, and censure of his Emperor.
Ovid dreams wearily of Rome, and vainly
Yet, of Rome adorned by his illusory glory.
Now, Jesus, you plunge me, rightly, into darkness:
Though, no Ovid, here, at least, is my wilderness.

O La Femme!
 

          (Amour: Lucien Létinois III)

O Woman! Prudent, wise, calm enemy,
Showing no half measures in your victory,
Killing the wounded, plundering the spoils,
Extending flame and steel to distant toils,
Or a good friend, fickle and yet still good,
And gentle, often too gentle, like glowing wood,
That lulls at leisure, intrigues us, puts to sleep,
Sometimes draws the sleeper on to that deep
Delicious death, in which the soul dies too!
Woman never to be relinquished! Here, for you
Not without an expression of unearned regret,
Is the insult of one your remorse alone might yet
Restore. But since you show no more remorse
Than a yew-tree has for deep shadow, pause
For the last farewell, fatal tree under which, I say,
Humanity has sheltered, from Eden to This Sad Day.