The Morning Angelus, Poem by Paul Verlaine

Poem by Paul Verlaine Collection Jadis et naguèreThemes MiscellaneousPeriod 19th century

Tawny with tones of scarlet,
A late summer dawn
Stormily bursts
On the blood-reddened horizon.

The dreamy night, blue and kind,
Pales, glimmers and melts into the air,
And the west in the shivering shadow
Is tinged at its edge with pale pink.

The plain shines in the distance and smokes.
An oblique ray come
From the rising sun lights up
The river like a naked saber.

The noise of awakened things
Blends with the light mists
That the grasses and the foliage
Have suddenly released.

The vague aspect of the landscape
Grows more marked and changes abundantly.
The silhouette of a village
Appears. — Sometimes a house
Lights up its window and casts
A great flash that goes to seek
The shadow of the wood full of silence.
Here and there a bell tower rises.

Meanwhile, the increased light
Strikes the plowshares in the furrows
And now, clear, gruff,
Despotic, the voice of the cocks

Proclaiming the cold and gray hour
Of bread eaten without hunger, of eyes
Rubbed that the north wind lashes
And of the creaking of axles,

Makes smoke come out of the roofs,
Makes the dogs bark in fury,
And down the accustomed slope,
Makes the heavy plowman descend,

While a chorus of harsh bells
In the growing of the day
Rises, a frank dawn-song of insults,
Addressed to the God of love!

Paul Verlaine

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