Verlaine

Name: Children of the Night - Verlaine
Author: Edwin Robinson

Why do you dig like long-clawed scavengers
To touch the covered corpse of him that fled
The uplands for the fens, and rioted
Like a sick satyr with doom’s worshippers?
Come! let the grass grow there; and leave his verse
To tell the story of the life he led.
Let the man go: let the dead flesh be dead,
And let the worms be its biographers.

Song sloughs away the sin to find redress
In art’s complete remembrance: nothing clings
For long but laurel to the stricken brow
That felt the Muse’s finger; nothing less
Than hell’s fulfilment of the end of things
Can blot the star that shines on Paris now.

Contents:

Related Resources

None available for this document.

Download Options

Title: Children of the Night

Select an option:

*Note: A download may not start for up to 60 seconds.

Email Options

Title: Children of the Night

Select an option:

Email addres:

*Note: It may take up to 60 seconds for for the email to be generated.

Chicago: Edwin Robinson, "Verlaine," Children of the Night, ed. Keil, Heinrich, 1822-1894 and trans. Seaton, R. C. in Children of the Night (New York: George E. Wood, 1850), Original Sources, accessed July 1, 2025, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=4LK266UDBRGD9QZ.

MLA: Robinson, Edwin. "Verlaine." Children of the Night, edited by Keil, Heinrich, 1822-1894, and translated by Seaton, R. C., in Children of the Night, New York, George E. Wood, 1850, Original Sources. 1 Jul. 2025. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=4LK266UDBRGD9QZ.

Harvard: Robinson, E, 'Verlaine' in Children of the Night, ed. and trans. . cited in 1850, Children of the Night, George E. Wood, New York. Original Sources, retrieved 1 July 2025, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=4LK266UDBRGD9QZ.