L'Amour Par Terre

Paul Verlaine

Moonlight

Your soul is like a painter's landscape where

charming masks in shepherd mummeries

are playing lutes and dancing with an air

of being sad in their fantastic guise.

Even while they sing, all in a minor key, 

of love triumphant and life's careless boon, 

they seem in doubt of their felicity, 

their song melts in the calm light of the moon, 

the lovely melancholy light that sets

the little birds to dreaming in the tree

and among the statues makes the jets

of slender fountains sob with ecstasy.

(translated by C. F. MacIntyre) 

Green 

See, blossoms, branches, fruit, leaves I have brought,

And then my heart that for you only sighs;

With those white hands of yours, oh, tear it not,

But let the poor gift prosper in your eyes.

The dew upon my hair is still undried,-

The morning wind strikes chilly where it fell.

Suffer my weariness here at your side

To dream the hour that shall it quite dispel.

Allow my head, that rings and echoes still

With your last kiss, to lie upon your breast,

Till it recover from the stormy thrill,-

And let me sleep a little, since you rest. 

L'Amour Par Terre 

The wind the other night blew down the Love

That in the dimmest corner of the park

So subtly used to smile, bending his arc,

And sight of whom did us so deeply move

One day! The other night's wind blew him down!

The marble dust whirls in the morning breeze.

Oh, sad to view, o'erblotted by the trees,

There on the base, the name of great renown!

Oh, sad to view the empty pedestal!

And melancholy fancies come and go

Across my dream, whereon a day of woe

Foreshadowed is-I know what will befall!

Oh, sad!-And you are saddened also, Sweet,

Are not you, by this scene? although your eye

Pursues the gold and purple butterfly

That flutters o'er the wreck strewn at our feet.