Paul Verlaine

[ian-gazarek.livejournal.com]

"Il pleut doucement sur la ville" -Arthur Rimbaud

—

Il pleure dans mon coeur
Comme il pleut sur la ville,
Quelle est cette langueur
Qui penetre mon coeur?

O bruit doux de la pluie
Par terre et sur les toits!
Pour un coeur qui s'ennuie,
O le chant de la pluie!

Il pleure sans raison
Dans ce coeur qui s'ecoeure.
Quoi! nulle trahison?
Ce deuil est sans raison.

C'est bien la pire peine
De ne savoir pourquoi,
Sans amour et sans haine,
Mon coeur a tant de peine!

Comments

[sapience.livejournal.com]

A bit of googling yielded this site: http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_author_texts.html?PoetId=2906, which has a large number of his works, including a translation of this poem into English here: http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=16277.

[ian-gazarek.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Did you have any luck finding where the Rimbaud quote was from?

[sapience.livejournal.com]

Heh--I've actually been working on that. I can't find a thing yet. It appears that Verlaine and Rimbaud were friends, so perhaps Rimbaud said it aloud to Verlaine, who was then inspired to write this poem. I'm going to keep searching, though.

[ian-gazarek.livejournal.com]

I heard that they were lovers—just something a friend told me, not exactly a verifiable source.

[sapience.livejournal.com]

Even better, then!

Well, I'm giving up for now--I'm not having any more luck.

This has been fun. :)