Green, de Paul Verlaine 🌊✒️🇫🇷

Paul Verlaine, a central figure in French Symbolism, achieved enduring literary relevance through his musical, emotionally charged verse. His 1874 collection Romances sans paroles (Songs without Words) epitomizes his poetic innovation and sensitivity, capturing fleeting moods and intimate feelings with a delicate precision that profoundly influenced modern poetry.

Green – Romances sans paroles – Paul Verlaine – 1874 – with translations from 🇫🇷 French into 🇬🇧 English and 🇮🇹 Italian by Enzo Martinelli

Composed during a turbulent period of Verlaine’s life—including his tumultuous relationship with fellow poet Arthur Rimbaud—Romances sans paroles reflects both emotional volatility and lyrical refinement. The poems, often impressionistic and rhythmically fluid, eschew narrative clarity in favor of musicality and suggestion. In doing so, Verlaine fulfills his famous dictum: “De la musique avant toute chose” (“Music before all else”).

What makes this collection especially significant is how it foreshadows Symbolism’s core aesthetic values: ambiguity, synesthetic imagery, and the evocation of emotion over direct meaning. Nature, love, melancholy, and silence emerge not through declarative statements but through subtle tonal shifts and evocative language. In poems like “Il pleure dans mon cœur,” Verlaine blurs the boundary between sound and sense, turning poetry into an atmospheric experience.

Romances sans paroles remains a cornerstone of French poetry, demonstrating Verlaine’s unmatched ability to marry emotion and form, and shaping the trajectory of lyrical poetry for generations.

🇫🇷 – Green, de Paul Verlaine

Voici des fruits, des fleurs, des feuilles et des branches,
Et puis voici mon cœur, qui ne bat que pour vous.
Ne le déchirez pas avec vos deux mains blanches
Et qu’à vos yeux si beaux l’humble présent soit doux.

J’arrive tout couvert encore de rosée
Que le vent du matin vient glacer à mon front.
Souffrez que ma fatigue, à vos pieds reposée,
Rêve des chers instants qui la délasseront.

Sur votre jeune sein laissez rouler ma tête
Toute sonore encore de vos derniers baisers ;
Laissez-la s’apaiser de la bonne tempête,
Et que je dorme un peu puisque vous reposez.

Paul Verlaine – Romances sans paroles

Acquarelles

Green
Spleen

🇬🇧 – Green, by Paul Verlaine

Here are fruits, flowers, leaves and branches,
And here is my heart, which beats only for you.
Do not tear it apart with your two white hands,
And may this humble gift be sweet to your beautiful eyes.

I arrive still covered in dew,
Which the morning wind has frozen upon my brow.
Allow my weariness, resting at your feet,
To dream of the dear moments that will refresh it.

Let my head rest upon your youthful breast,
Still ringing with your last kisses;
Let it find peace from the sweet storm,
And let me sleep a little while you rest.

Menu of the section on Literature in Translation of this blog

🇮🇹 – Verde, di Paul Verlaine

Ecco frutti, fiori, foglie e rami,
ed ecco il mio cuore, che batte solo per voi.
Non strappatelo con le vostre due mani bianche
E che ai vostri occhi così belli questo umile dono sia dolce.

Arrivo ancora tutto coperto di rugiada
Che il vento del mattino mi gela sulla fronte.
Permettete che la mia stanchezza, riposata ai vostri piedi,
Sogni i cari momenti che la distenderanno.

Lasciate che la mia testa rotoli sul vostro giovane seno, ancora risuonante dei vostri ultimi baci; lasciate che si plachi dalla dolce tempesta, e che io dorma un po' poiché voi riposate.