Long Verlaine Poems

Il pleure dans mon coeur (“It rains in my heart”)
by Paul Verlaine
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It rains in my heart
As it rains on the town;
Heavy languor and dark
Drenches my heart.

Oh, the sweet-sounding rain
Cleansing pavements...

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The Evening Soup, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s La soupe du soir

						To J.-K. Huysmans

(Verlaine here paints a stark tableau of working-class or peasant life shorn of any symbolic or imaginary references. Even if I see no...

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“Lost Pantheons” 

Alexandrine tragedies
Racine diamond-edged
come and go 
French letters 
blown like leaves
straight up 
into the rarefied air
scattered like lovers
against a body 
of purple vain poetry 
written invisible
on the skin of 
Miss Chance 
Cocteau
spoken with 
joie...

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Conquistador, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s tercets : Conquistador

Message to fellow soupers: I have been trying to upload, in vain, yet another translation of a 
 Paul Verlaine poem titled: "Ballade in favour of those called...

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Ballade : In favour of those called Decadents and Symbolists, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s Ballade en faveur des dénommés Décadents et Symbolistes

						for Léon Vanier*

(The texts I use for my translations are from : Yves-Alain Favre,...

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Epilogue, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s poem : Epilogue

     By way of a Farewell to « personal » poetry. Paul Verlaine, March 1895

(Towards the end of his rather short and tumultuous life,...

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Paris, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s poem : Paris

( For those who may be interested, this poem by Paul Verlaine presents more difficulties than his other rhymed quatrains I have read, but then this may only...

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Prison Souvenirs, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s poem : Souvenirs de prison, March 1874*

(Verlaine was sentenced to serve a term of two years in prison for having shot his erstwhile lover in the arm/hand, the legendary...

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A Self-Tutoring Translation of RIMBAUD's " The Vowels " in Contemporary Terms

(" The Vowels " in the Paul Verlaine (first version) copy in RIMBAUD Œuvres complètes. Ed. by Pierre Brunel. Paris : Livres de Poche/La...

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To Don Quixote, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s sonnet : A Don Quichotte

         (Poem written in March 1861 that I would Verlaine had
dedicated to the Grand Dear Old...

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Lament, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s poem : Lamento

					Ma mie est morte.
					Plourez mes yeux.
(from an old poet of the fourteenth century whose name escapes me. Paul Verlaine)

The town hoists its high roofs
Of a thousand zig-zagging hoods.
A...

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I was wondering how many renowned gay poets I know— 
Like Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, and Arthur Rimbaud? 
Edna St. Vincent Millay and Alice Walker, I am told, 
Both Sylvia Plath and Gertrude Stein were...

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Spleen
by Paul Verlaine
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The roses were so very red;
The ivy, impossibly black.

Dear, with a mere a turn of your head,
My despair’s flooded back!

The sky was too gentle, too blue;
The sea, far...

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Autumnal Dirge

(One of many possible translations* of « Chanson d’automne » by Paul Verlaine)

	for Sandra Feldman

Drawn out sobs
Violins
   of autumn
Wound my heart
Through a languor
    Monotonous

Hardly breathing
And turning wan, when
 ...

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(after Paul Verlaine)

I often have this strange and vivid dream: 
a woman I don't know - but we're in love. 
She's not, each time I see her, quite the same, 
nor truly other: loves me,...

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Gleaming, shining silver wire
Admiring skills of a crafted lyre
Music heard in all it's glory
Lured to listen to an angel story

Alas they yearn to hear the sound
Angel whispers intelligence bound
Verlaine v Grigori, Evangeline in a stir
Past...

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