Circumspection, Poem by Paul Verlaine

Poem by Paul Verlaine Collection Romances sans parolesThemes HappinessPeriod 19th century

Give me your hand, hold your breath, let us sit down
Under this giant tree where the breeze comes to die
In uneven sighs beneath the gray branches
That the pale and gentle moonlight caresses.

Motionless, let us lower our eyes to our knees.
Let us not think, let us dream. Let us leave to their own devices
The happiness that flees and the love that fades,
And our hair brushed by the wing of owls.

Let us forget to hope. Discreet and contained,
May the soul of each of us continue
This calm and this serene death of the sun.

Let us remain silent amid the nocturnal peace:
It is not good to go disturb in its sleep
Nature, that fierce and taciturn god.

Paul Verlaine

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-circumspection-paul-verlaine/