Je suis comme le roi d'un pays pluvieux, Riche, mais impuissant, jeune et pourtant tr's-vieux, Qui, de ses pr'cepteurs m'prisant les courbettes, S'ennuie avec ses chiens comme avec d'autres b'tes....
Quand le ciel bas et lourd p'se comme un couvercle Sur l'esprit g'missant en proie aux longs ennuis, Et que de l'horizon embrassant tout le cercle Il nous verse un jour noir plus triste que les nuits; ...
It will not be these beauties of vignettes, Poor products of a worthless century, Feet in half-boots, fingers in castanets, Who satisfy the yearning heart in me.
Do you know, as I do, delicious sadness and make others say of you: 'Strange man!' I was dying. In my soul, singular illness, desire and horror were mingled as one: ...
It is a superb land, a country of Cockaigne, as they say, that I dream of visiting with an old friend. A strange land, drowned in our northern fogs, that one might call the East of the West, the China of Europe; a land patientl...
Can we suppress the old Remorse Who bends our heart beneath his stroke, Who feeds, as worms feed on the corse, Or as the acorn on the oak? Can we suppress the old Remorse? ...
When I watch you go by, in all your indolence, To sound of instruments within the echoing hall Suspending your appeal of lingering harmony, And showing in your glance the ennui of your soul; ...
I once knew a certain Benedicta whose presence filled the air with the ideal and whose eyes spread abroad the desire of grandeur, of beauty, of glory, and of all that makes man believe in immortality....
You'd entertain the universe in bed, Foul woman; ennui makes you mean of soul. To exercise your jaws at this strange sport Each day you work a heart between your teeth. Your eyes, illuminated like boutiques...