Paul Verlaine

Paul Verlaine (1844–1896) was a French poet born in Metz and raised in Paris, where he worked briefly as a clerk at the Hôtel de Ville while publishing his first book, Poèmes saturniens (1866). His Fêtes galantes (1869) and La Bonne Chanson (1870), the latter written for his young fiancée Mathilde Mauté, established him as a master of fluid, musical verse among the Parnassian poets.

In 1871 he met Arthur Rimbaud, and in 1873 he was imprisoned in Belgium after shooting him; Romances sans paroles (1874) was written in these years and Sagesse (1881), a book of Catholic devotion, in the aftermath. He later published Jadis et naguère (1884) and Parallèlement (1889), and was named the leading living poet by the Symbolists, though he spent his last years in poverty and illness in Paris. These versions are from Gertrude Hall's English translation of 1895.