Clair de lune (moonlight)

[Mousetoescamper]

Tonight's waxing gibbous moon.



Clair de lune
By Paul Verlaine (1869)

Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.

Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune
Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur
Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,
Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres.

Your soul is a chosen landscape
On which masks and Bergamasques cast enchantment as they go
Playing the lute, and dancing, and all but
Sad beneath their fantasy-disguises.

Singing all the while, in the minor mode,
Of all-conquering love and life so kind to them
They do not seem to believe in their good fortune,
And their song mingles with the moonlight,

With the calm moonlight, sad and lovely,
Which makes the birds dream in the trees,
And the plumes of the fountains weep in ecstasy,
The tall, slender plumes of the fountains among the marble sculptures.

[elleng]

1. MERCI!

Back to French poetry! Actually STILL have books I used in college!!!

[Mousetoescamper]

2. De rien!

I took French literature courses in translation.

[elleng]

3. I didn't get THAT far, 'just' poetry!

Helped my understanding of BOTH, poetry AND French (after studying both in high school AND college.)