Paul Verlaine

A poem is really a kind of machine for producing the poetic state by means of words.

— Paul Verlaine

A flat black bug, that is London.

— Paul Verlaine

Music before all else, and for that choose the irregular, which is vaguer and melts better into the air.

— Paul Verlaine

Tears fall in my heart like the rain on the town.

— Paul Verlaine

Take eloquence and wring its neck.

— Paul Verlaine

Prends l'e loquence et tords-lui son cou! Take eloquence and break its neck!

— Paul Verlaine

Tears fall in my heart As tears fall on the town.

— Paul Verlaine

“MANDOLINE.   The courtly serenaders,    The beauteous listeners, Sit idling 'neath the branches    A balmy zephyr stirs.   It's Tircis…

— Paul Verlaine

“Of its persistent, artless strain: Naught so can soothe a soul's own pain, As making glad another soul!”

— Paul Verlaine

London, black as crows and noisy as ducks, prudish with all the vices in evidence, everlastingly drunk, in spite of ridiculous laws…

— Paul Verlaine

“Rumour has a hundred mouths.”

— Paul Verlaine

“II pleure dans mon coeur Comme il pleut sur la ville. Nơi tim đây nức nở, như thành phố mưa rơi...”

— Paul Verlaine

“O'ER THE WOOD'S BROW   O'er the wood's brow,    Pale, the moon stares; In every bough    Wandering airs Faintly suspire.…

— Paul Verlaine

“Tears are shed in my heart like the rain on the town. ( Il pleure dans mon coeur Comme il pleut sur…

— Paul Verlaine

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

— Paul Verlaine

“COLLOQUE SENTIMENTAL   In the deserted park, silent and vast, Erewhile two shadowy glimmering figures passed.   Their lips were colorless, and…

— Paul Verlaine

The poet is a madman lost in adventure.

— Paul Verlaine

“What we need, we, is fixedness intense, Unequalled effort, strife that shall not cease,”

— Paul Verlaine

I like this word decadent; all shimmering and purple and gold.

— Paul Verlaine

“I like the word ‘decadent,’ all shimmering with purple and gold … it throws out the brilliance of flames and the gleam…

— Paul Verlaine

Your soul is a chosen landscape Where charming masked and costumed figures go Playing the lute and dancing and almost Sad beneath…

— Paul Verlaine

I am the Empire at the end of the decadence.

— Paul Verlaine

I love this word decadence, all shimmering in purple and gold. It suggests the subtle thoughts of ultimate civilization, a high literary…

— Paul Verlaine

Sap which mounts, and flowers which thrust, Your childhood is a bower: Let my fingers wander in the moss Where glows the…

— Paul Verlaine

“STREETS          Let's dance the jig!   Above all else I loved her eyes, More clear than stars of cloudless skies,…

— Paul Verlaine