Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CURE OF LANGRUNE-SUR-MER, by PAUL FORT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CURE OF LANGRUNE-SUR-MER, by                    
First Line: When the fields are violet with heat in the mid-autumn evenings fair
Last Line: And you would know that day how great a thing is love.
Subject(s): Clergy; Love; Sailing & Sailors; Priests; Rabbis; Ministers; Bishops; Seamen; Sails


When the fields are violet with heat in the mid-autumn evenings fair the cure of
Langrune-sur-mer, plump, pensive priest with ruddy phiz, his breviary in his
hand, surveys with eyes of absinthe sweet the violet, flower-besprinkled land.
The guest of the parish road he is, rector rotund who lolls at ease, and till
that hour compassionate when twilight spills abroad its dreams a bible ambulant
he seems, who drags, with staid and pious gait, where devastated poplars arch,
black boots and leaf-encumbered march.

The priest of Langrune-on-the-sea, I have seen him. He has conquered me. It is
my whim to be for him, Seigneur, another Lamartine. His phiz is crimson like my
heart, but in his eyes of absinthe-green I have seen an ancient anguish start,
as he heaved his paunch across the plain, ere day's last glimmerings were dead.
In his eyes, pale, moist, and clear, I read regret and longing for the main.
This little round cure -- Ah, I am sly, you see. Now did I guess it pray? Did
someone tell it me? -- wished at sixteen, a lad of grace, a sailor's calling to
embrace, this little, round cure.

I would have you watch with me his eyes, the hue of day, when at dusk he hears
the sea, to watch the tender ray of his glance when, rapt, he hears the sea
climb sombre lands, on his cheeks and priestly bands to catch the glint of
tears, when he sees its whiteness dim o'er ploughed fields. Left and right, hat
and breviary fly to strew the roadside herb. In the furrows fast he flees, his
white hair in the breeze, his eyes ablaze with light, towards the flood that
summons him, that he craves all things above, this little, round cure in his
lunacy superb!

And you would know that day how great a thing is love.





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