It's the Languorous Ecstasy...

"The wind on the heath
Abates, holds its breath".
Favart

It's the languorous ecstasy,
It's the lovers' lethargy,
It's the rustling woods: the trees-
Branches, leaves, zephyr-caressed-
It's the dusk's gray-shadowed nest:
Hushed choir brustling in the breeze.

O that fragile rippling, whose
Whispered mutter trills and coos
Like the supple, tender sound
Wafting from the grasses, ruffled...
Or the river's pebbles, muffled,
Tumbling, soft, over the ground.

Ours, that soul lamenting, weeping
In that plaintive murmur, sleeping;
Ours it is, no? spirit twain-
Yours, mine- gently soughed and sighed
Low, this balmy eventide,
In a humble, soft refrain.

Poem: "It's the Languorous Ecstasy..." Paul Verlaine, Ariettes Oubliees, I, 1874.
Photo: Laurel Gagnon