PAUL VERLAINE
Allegory
Despotic Sununer, heavy, colorless–
Like king presiding tortures , fey , effete-
Yawns, stretches in the scheming skies' pale heat;
Man sleeps the sleep
or
labor's sweet recess.
The lark lay hushed: too tiring her distress.
No cloud, no breath of air: a calm complete.
No wrinkle in the sky's relentless sheet
Of blue, seething in torpor's mute caress.
The crickets, numbed to lethargy, are lying
Still. In their pebbled beds the brooklets, drying,
Billow and bound about no more. A flowing,
Ebbing of opalescence flecks the air,
Shimmering in its iridescence, glowing...
Black, yellow dragonflies dart here, dart there.
Circumspection
Give me your hand, hold still your breath, let's sit
Beneath this great tree, where the dusk-gray air
Wafts sighing, dying in the boughs, and where
The pale leaves softly stir, caressed, moon-lit.
Motionless, let us bow our heads and quit
All thought. Let's dream our dream, let's leave to their
Devices joy and love--windswept-like hair
Breeze-blown, brushed by the owl's wing grazing it.
Let us not even hope. In quiet peace
Let our two souls mirror the day's surcease
And the sun's death in night, tranquil and deep.
