In the Style of Paul Verlaine

It is by very dint of moonlight

That I assume this mask nocturnal

And of Saturn tipping his urn

And of those moons night after night.

Romances without words have found,

In a chord discordant and fresh,

How this wimpish heart to vex,

O the sound, the ground they’ve found!

It’s not as if you’d not cried grace

On an offender against you in truth:

Now, me, I pardon my own youth

Come back painted not sans grace.

I pardon too that lie herewith

In favor in short of all the pleasure

Very banal awfully a leisure

Sadly a tad infected me with.

Paul Verlaine