No More Learning

Pass on; for it's the law; none can deny;

All leans; and this great age with all its light

Slides to the vast shadow where, pale, we flee.

Oh! The oaks they fell for Hercules' pyre,

What a harsh roar they make this night of fire!

Death's steeds neigh joyfully: the bright day flies;

Our great century that tamed the hostile winds

Expires. . . . their brother and their peer, O Gautier,

You join Dumas, Lamartine, Musset.

The ancient sea that made men young is dry,

Youth has no fountain, now there's no more Styx,

And the grim reaper with his pointed scythe

Steps forward, thoughtfully, to clear the field;

My turn arrives; night fills my troubled eye,

That from doves' flights, alas, reads coming days,

Weeps over cradles, smiles to see new graves.

Gerard de Nerval (1808-1855)

Gerard de Nerval

'Gerard de Nerval'
Frontispice pour Grandes Figures d'Hier et d'Aujourd'hui, 1852 - 1883
The New York Public Library: Digital Collections

Gothic Song

Beautiful spouse

I love your tears!

They're the dew

Befitting flowers.

Beautiful things

Have but one spring

With roses let's sow

Time's footprints!

Blonde or brunette

Must we select?

Pleasure is

The god of this world.

El Desdichado (The Disinherited)

I am the darkness - the widower - the un-consoled,

The prince of Aquitaine in the ruined tower;

My sole star is dead - and my constellated lute

Bears the black sun of Melancholy.
You who consoled me in funereal night,

Bring me Posilipo, the sea of Italy,

The flower that pleased my grieving heart,

And the trellis where the vine entwines the rose.

Am I Phoebus or Love? . . . Biron or Lusignan?

My brow's still red from the queen's kiss;

I dreamed in the grotto where Sirens swim. . .

And twice victorious crossed Acheron:

Plucking from Orpheus' lyre one by one

The saintly sighs and the faerie cries.

Note: The Spanish title was the motto adopted by the disinherited Ivanhoe in Scott's novel. The Hill of Posilipo is situated to the west of the city of Naples, and is the site of Virgil's tomb. Biron was a friend of Henri IV, Lusignan a famous family, both associated with the Valois. A number of personal references are best pursued by reading a biography of Nerval, of his early meeting with 'Adrienne' and later relationship with the actress Jenny Colon.

Myrtho

Myrtho, I think of you divine enchantress,

And of proud Posilipo, lit with a thousand fires,

Of your brow flooded with Eastern light,

And the black grapes twined in your golden hair.

It was in your cup I drank intoxication,

When they saw me praying at Iacchus' feet,

And from your laughing eyes' secret lightening,

For the Muses made me one of the sons of Greece.