Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WINTER SUNSET, by JULES LAFORGUE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WINTER SUNSET, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What a sorrowful sunset we had tonight
Last Line: Of this rotten brain which was the earth, one day.
Subject(s): Despair; Evening; Winter; Sunset; Twilight


What a sorrowful sunset we had tonight!
In the trees a wind of despair wept,
Blowing dead wood amid the withered leaves.
Across the lace of barren branches
Etched upon the cold and pale-blue sky,
The sovereign of the heavens dropped stark and desolating.
O Sun! In summertime, magnificent in your glory
You set, radiant as a vast ciborium
Inflaming the azure! Now we behold
A sickly saffron disc, bereft of rays,
Die on the vermilion-washed horizon
Bleak in a sinister tubercular decor
Feebly tingeing the rheumy clouds
Dull livid white, splenetic green,
Old gold, wan lilac, leaden gray, tarnished rose.
O, it's finished, finished! The wind is long in its throes!
The days are over with; all is gasping and sere;
Earth's course is run, its loins are able no more.
And its miserable children, thin, bald, and pallid
With pondering the everlasting problems too much,
Shaking and stooped in their burden of shawls,
In the waning yellow gaslight of the misty boulevards
Contemplate their absinthes with mute and empty eyes,
Laughing in bitterness when pregnant women go by
Parading their bellies and their breasts
In the beastly pride of a god's slaves . . .

Unknown tempests of the last debacles,
Come! Unleash your whirlwind floods!
Seize this sordid, gasping globe! Sweep
Its weary heirs and cities' leprosy away!
And fling the unspeakable havoc to the immensity of night!
And in the great innocence of the eternal suns
And the stars of love, may there be nothing known
Of this rotten Brain which was the Earth, one day.





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