Weird Tales/Volume 36/Issue 6/Moonlight

by Paul Verlaine, translated by Clark Ashton Smith

For other English-language translations of this work, see Clair de lune (Verlaine).

Moonlight

(From the French of Paul Verlaine)

 

Your soul, it is a garden set apart
For masque and bergamasque of mummers gay,
Who dance, and strum the cithern, but at heart
Are almost sad in their fantasque array.

Singing in minor mode, to minor string,
Of love triumphant and life opportune,
They scarce believe the happy theme they sing,
And their songs pass and mingle with the moon,

The lucent, mournful moon so fair and high,
Making the bird to dream in coverts lone,
And the frail fount to sob with ecstasy
Among the tranquil statues bowed in stone.

 

Translated by Timeus Gaylord