Take eloquence and wring its neck. Paul Verlaine More Quotes by Paul Verlaine More Quotes From Paul Verlaine I am the Empire at the end of the decadence. Paul Verlaine decadence empires ends I love this word decadence, all shimmering in purple and gold. It suggests the subtle thoughts of ultimate civilization, a high literary culture, a soul capable of intense pleasures. It throws off bursts of fire and the sparkle of precious stones. It is redolent of the rouge of courtesans, the games of the circus, the panting of the gladiators, the spring of wild beasts, the consuming in flames of races exhausted by their capacity for sensation, as the tramp of an invading army sounds. Paul Verlaine army fire spring Music before all else, Paul Verlaine music-is air Here are fruits, flowers, leaves and branches, and here is my heart which beats only for you. Paul Verlaine flower heart love The poet is a madman lost in adventure. Paul Verlaine poet adventure travel Your soul is a chosen landscape Where charming masked and costumed figures go Playing the lute and dancing and almost Sad beneath their fantastic disguises. All sing in a minor key Of all-conquering love and careless fortune They do not seem to believe in their happiness And their song mingles with the moonlight. The still moonlight, sad and beautiful, Which gives the birds to dream in the trees And makes the fountain sprays sob in ecstasy, The tall, slender fountain sprays among the marble statues. Paul Verlaine dream song beautiful La musique avant toute chose. Paul Verlaine practice Tears fall in my heart Paul Verlaine rain heart fall A poem is really a kind of machine for producing the poetic state by means of words. Paul Verlaine machines poetry mean The rosy hearth, the lamplight's narrow beam, The meditation that is rather dream, With looks that lose themselves in cherished looks; The hour of steaming tea and banished books; The sweetness of the evening at an end, The dear fatigue, and right to rest attained, And worshipped expectation of the night,— Oh, all these things, in unrelenting flight, My dream pursues through all the vain delays, Impatient of the weeks, mad at the days! Paul Verlaine dream night book Sap which mounts, and flowers which thrust, Paul Verlaine childhood june flower Prends l'e loquence et tords-lui son cou! Take eloquence and break its neck! Paul Verlaine necks break son London, black as crows and noisy as ducks, prudish with all the vices in evidence, everlastingly drunk, in spite of ridiculous laws about drunkenness, immense, though it is really basically only a collection of scandal-mongering boroughs, vying with each other, ugly and dull, without any monuments except interminable docks. Paul Verlaine drunk ducks law A vast black sleep falls over my life sleep, all hope sleep, all desire. Paul Verlaine black sleep fall I like this word decadent; all shimmering and purple and gold. Paul Verlaine purple gold A flat black bug, that is London. Paul Verlaine bugs london black Tears fall in my heart like the rain on the town. Paul Verlaine tears rain heart fall