Valpurgis Night

Valpurgis Night, Classic By Paul Verlaine © 2006 by http://www.HorrorMasters.com

This is rather the sabbat of the second Faust, than the other; A rhythmic sabbat—rhythmic as a lay Is rhythmic. Imagine a garden by lenotre— Correct, ridiculous and gay. Flower beds in circle—in their midst, the fountains; walks Arrow straight and sylvan gods in marble; gods marine In bronze; with here and there a Venus coyly draped; The trees aligned; a bowling green; Chestnut trees; and flowering plants forming a leafy dune; Some dwarfed rose bushes set about with loving care; Beyond, the yews well placed in triangle. The moon Of summer shining softly there. Midnight sounds, and wakens in the depth of this old park A melancholy air—a heavy, slow and sadly listless air— A huntsman’s lay, sweet, low and melancholy as The hunting song in Tannhauser. Then comes a veiled and distant chant of horns, whose tenderness Of sense quite overcomes the soul’s distress with sweet accords, Harmoniously discordant in their wild excess; And to this call of horns There comes a band of white-robed, slowly moving forms Diaphanous, on which the moon beams seem to play With opal tints among the shadows of the branches Green— A Watteau dreamed of by Raffet. And mingling with the soft green shadows of the trees, With gestures languishing and full of grief profound, These forms amid the bronzes begin a mystic dance— A dance wherein they circle slowly round. These swaying spectres—are they nothing but the thought Of some poor drunken bard—or the remorse in his bewildered head— These spectres that with rhythmic tread dance on the turf? Or are they simply spirits of the dead?

Are they then thy regrets, O dreamer who invites this hell, Thy thoughts, or thy remorse—say?—these creatures spurned? These spectres that some maddening impulse sways; Or have the dead to madmen turned? No matter! They are always here, these phantoms of the brain, Making their mournful round and winding ever on; Whirling like atoms in the clear rays of the sun, That in a moment suddenly are gone. Pallid and damp, the dawn o’ercomes them one by one— The horns and all—they pass with coming day— Till nothing more remains—nothing—but a garden by Lenotre, Correct, ridiculous and gay.