Émile Nelligan, "Autumn Evenings"

[rfmcdonald]

See how here the tulip- there the rose,
By a group of bronze and marbre statuaries,
In the park where love frolics under tres,
Sing through my nights, pink and monotonous.

The flowerbeds sang at eve in joyful chords
Where the moonlight's dance is a shifting show
And where, sultry and sad, their high notes go,
Troubling the pure dreams of solitary birds.

See how here the tulip there the rose
And crystal lilies, crimson in twilight,
Radiate sadly to the sun in flight
That bears away from beasts and things their woes.

And my ravaged love, like bleeding flesh, makes
whole
Its wounds and lets its madness find repose.
See how the lily, tulip, and the rose
Weep for the memories that wash my soul.

- from The Complete Poems of Émile Nelligan, edited and translated by Fred Cogswell, (Montréal: Harvest House, 1983), p 38.