Tuesday
A poem by 19th century French poet Paul Verlaine has been on my mind all day, perhaps because a dismal rain has been falling in Sewanee and is supposed to persist throughout the week. When I attended a French school at age 13, I had to memorize this poem, and parts of it have never left me.
“Tears Fall in My Heart” is one of Verlaine’s numerous depression poems. Like many if not most poets, Verlaine suffered from depression, which he transformed into haunting lyrics. This is one of them:
Tears Fall in My Heart
By Paul Verlaine
Trans. by Richard Stokes
Tears fall in my heart
As rain falls on the town;
What is this torpor
Pervading my heart?
Ah, the soft sound of rain
On the ground and roofs!
For a listless heart,
Ah, the sound of the rain!Tears fall without reason
In this disheartened heart.
What! Was there no treason? …
This grief’s without reason.
And the worst pain of all
Must be not to know why
Without love and without hate
My heart feels such pain.
For those of you who know French, here’s the original:
Il pleure dans mon cœur
Comme il pleut sur la ville;
Quelle est cette langueur
Qui pénètre mon cœur?
Ô bruit doux de la pluie
Par terre et sur les toits!
Pour un cœur qui s’ennuie
Ô le bruit de la pluie!
Il pleure sans raison
Dans ce cœur qui s’écœure
Quoi! nulle trahison? …
Ce deuil est sans raison.
C’est bien la pire peine
De ne savoir pourquoi
Sans amour et sans haine,
Mon cœur a tant de peine.
Such poems have the paradoxical effect of making a dismal day more bearable.