Paul-Marie Verlaine — A pastel

Your soul is like a landscape choice and fair, 

Joyous with dancing, lutes, and masquerade, 

Wherein the folk, though gay the garb they wear, 

Look almost sad throughout the long parade.

All singing in the minor of love's kisses, 

And life the willing slave of love the strong, 

They seem as though they doubted of their blisses, 

And dreamy moonlight mingles with their song : 

The dreamy moonlight of a Watteau painting, 

That silences the birds, and where one sees 

The sobbing fountains all like figures fainting, 

Tall, slim, amid the statues and the trees.

From “Songs of a Worker”,

1881.