Paul Verlaine Quotes

16 Sourced Quotes

Where masks and bergamasks go charming, playing the lute and dancing and almost sad beneath their fanciful disguises.

Paul Verlaine
By far the worst pain
Is not to understand
Why without love or hate
My heart's full of pain.

Paul Verlaine
Grip eloquence by the throat and squeeze
It to death. And while you're about it
You might corral that runaway, Rhyme,
Or you'll get Rhyme Without End, Amen.
Who will denounce that criminal, Rhyme?
Tone-deaf children or crazed foreigners
No doubt fashioned its paste jewelry,
Tinplate on top, hollow underneath.

Paul Verlaine
The long sobs
Of the violins
Of autumn
Pierce my heart
With monotonous languor.

Paul Verlaine
Here are fruits, flowers, leaves and branches, And here is my heart which beats only for you.

Paul Verlaine
Let's hear the music first and foremost,
And that means no more one-two-one-twos…
Something more vague instead, something lighter
Dissolving in air, weightless as air.
When you choose your words, no need to search
In strict dictionaries for pinpoint
Definitions. Better the subtle
And heady Songs of Imprecision.

Paul Verlaine
The drawn-out sobs of autumn's violins wound my heart with a monotonous languor.

Paul Verlaine
What have you done, you standing there
In floods of tears?
Tell me what you have done
With your young life?

Paul Verlaine
The long sobs of
The violins
Of autumn
Lay waste my heart
With monotones
Of boredom.

Paul Verlaine
Music above all, and for this Choose the irregular.

Paul Verlaine
Falling tears in my heart,
Falling rain on the town.
Why this long ache,
A knife in my heart.

Paul Verlaine
And oh those children's voices, singing beneath the dome!

Paul Verlaine
There is weeping in my heart Like the rain falling on the city.

Paul Verlaine
What have you done, you there Weeping without cease, Tell me, yes you, what have you done With all your youth?

Paul Verlaine
White moon gleaming
Among trees,
From every branch
Sound rising into
Canopies.

Paul Verlaine
And so I leave
On cruel winds
Squalling
And gusting me
Like a dead leaf
Falling.

Paul Verlaine