Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag. Rhett
The Lovers’ Chronicle
Dear Muse,
© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
when i want to feel
i always know
where to go
when you had mine
and i had yours
maybe one day
no longer hidden
not just in dreams
perhaps
we can return
and return again
do you know what it is
to be half of a once whole
© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
do you know what it is to miss
do you know the subtle ways
how to hold on no matter what
to return and return again
in shadow and sunlight
© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved
Today is the birthday of Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (Douai; June 20, 1786 – July 23, 1859 Paris); poet and novelist. She published Élégies et Romances, her first poetic work, in 1819. Her melancholy, elegiacal poems are admired for their grace and profound emotion. In 1821 she published the narrative work Veillées des Antilles. It includes the novella Sarah, an important contribution to the genre of slave stories in France. Marceline appeared as an actress and singer in Douai, Rouen, the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, where she notably played Rosine in Beaumarchais’s Le Barbier de Séville. She retired from the stage in 1823. She later became friends with the novelist Honoré de Balzac, and he once wrote that she was an inspiration for the title character of La Cousine Bette. The publication of her innovative volume of elegies in 1819 marks her as one of the founders of French romantic poetry. Her poetry in is also known for taking on dark and depressing themes, which reflects her troubled life. She is the only female writer included in the famous Les Poètes maudits anthology published by Paul Verlaine in 1884. A volume of her poetry was among the books in Friedrich Nietzsche’s library.
Elégies
La mort est dans l’adieu d’un ami véritable.
-
Poésies, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, éd. Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, 1830, Au Sommeil, p. 177
Peut-être un jour voix tendre et voilée
M’appellera sous de jeunes cyprès:
Cachée alors au fond de la vallée,
Plus heureuse que lui, j’entendrai ses regrets.
-
Poésies de Mme Desbordes-Valmore, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, éd. Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, 1822, Élégie, p. 117
Se reprendre à des biens perdus,
C’est marcher au flot qui recule.
-
Les Pleurs: Poésies nouvelles, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, éd. Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, 1834, p. 227
Qu’en avez-vous fait ?
Vous aviez mon coeur,
Moi, j’avais le vôtre :
Un coeur pour un coeur ;
Bonheur pour bonheur !
-
Les plus belles pages de la Poésie française, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, éd. Sélection du Reader’s Digest, 2001 (ISBN 2-7098-0248-1), p. 310
L’absence
Quand je me sens mourir du poids de ma pensée,
Quand sur moi tout mon sort assemble sa rigueur,
D’un courage inutile affranchie et lassée,
Je me sauve avec toi dans le fond de mon coeur !
-
Les plus belles pages de la Poésie française, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, éd. Sélection du Reader’s Digest, 2001 (ISBN 2-7098-0248-1), p. 311
Mac Tag
No Comments on "The Lovers’ Chronicle 20 June – return again – verse by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore – photography by Jean Dieuzaide"