Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Next Issue Kirsty Gunn re-arranges the world John McAuliffe reads Seamus Heaney's letters and translations Chris Price's 'Songs of Allegiance' David Herman on Aharon Appelfeld Victoria Moul on Christopher Childers compendious Greek and Latin Lyric Book Philip Terry again answers the question, 'What is Poetry'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 31, Volume 9 Number 5, May - June 1983.

The Dirge of the Wise Man of Paris (translated by C. Middleton) Jules Laforgue

To love-just these ephemeral skirts alone?
It'd be like saying 'Happy Centenary' to the sun.

But in their fugitive gardens you can taste, unique,
A concourse of the All at their dolls' picnic;

Taste, conducting rites that are reciprocal,
Unconscious stuff, boiled, in their eggshell.

Executor, perhaps, of the Law's writ and Estate,
With all your faith you will pontificate;

These anonymous solfeggios, perhaps, you'll vivisect
For the art of it, and never their ultimate do expect,

For don't think that the host where sleeps your heaven
Has in its flour an unimagined leaven.

Well, anyway, their eyes are all! And the table's laid,
On the juvenile Organ blind improvisations are played,

And-no wedding, honeymoon, or baggage at all,
No cancans, no shared bed stale as the air in a hospital-
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image