Beauty Of Women….

Paul Verlaine

          (Sagesse: Bk I, I)

 Beauty Of Women….

Beauty of women, their frailty, and those pale hands

Which often do good yet can bring all suffering.

And those eyes where of the creature nothing

Is left but enough to say enough to man’s demands.

And forever, the maternal sleeper’s call,

Even when it lies, that voice! The dawn

Cry, when soft vespers are sung, signal new-born

Or sweet sob that dies in the folds of a shawl! ...

Harshness of man! Vile leaden life here below!

Ah! Let something at least, far from kisses and blows,

Let something survive for a moment on the slope,

Something the childlike subtle heart contains, 

Goodness, respect! For dying what can we hope

To take with us, and truly, what when death comes remains?

No. It was Gallican….

          (Sagesse: Bk I, IV)

No it was Gallican, that era, and Jansenist!

Towards the Middle Ages vast and delicate

I needs must sail, the shipwreck in my heart,

Far from our carnal mind and the sad flesh.

King, statesman, monk, chemist, artisan, hour

Of the architect, soldier, doctor, advocate,

What times! Yes, may my ruined heart voyage yet

Towards all that ardent, supple artistic power!

There let me take part – anyhow, at the court

Or elsewhere, what matter – in that vital thing,

And may I, a saint, do good, think true thoughts,

High theology and solid morality, journeying

Led by the unique folly the Cross has brought,

O mad Cathedral, soaring on stony wings!

Hear The Sweetest Song….

          (Sagesse: Bk I, V)

Hear the sweetest song pass

That weeps for your sole delight.

It is discreet and so light:

A water-drop trembling on glass! 

A voice known to you (and dear?)

But at present misted and veiled

Like a widow desolate, assailed,

Yet like her still proud, it appears,

And in the long folds of a veil

Stirred by the autumn breeze,

Hidden, to startled heart reveals

The truth like the star so pale.

It says, that voice you know,

That our life is goodness at last,

That hatred and envy pass,

Nothing’s left, death lays all low.

It speaks to us also of glory

Of humility, of asking no more,

And the marriage of golden ore

To sweet joy of peace without victory.

Welcome the voice that persists

In its naïve epithalamium,

Nothing more for the soul, now, come,

Than to render soul-sadness less.

It is hard-pressed, and passing by,

The suffering soul without anger,

And the moral is all too clear! 

Listen to the song that is wise.