Way way back in middle school we had a French teacher who... hmmm... I'm not sure how to put this. I shall just say that the words "fear and loathing" come to mind. There was one poem that we all learned and memorized... I think I have mentioned it before, but it came back to me again this morning. Upon further reflection, I think that he took the joy out of learning the intrinsic value of something both beautiful and sad. To a bunch of thirty kids thirty years ago it was just a bunch of words to be recited like robots. That's kind of sad in a vacuum where words have their meaning sucked right out of them... although the method worked. It makes me think more on how the beauty of the language was lost because of it. Well... he could not take the beauty and meaning of these words away from me.
Il pleure dans mon coeur
Comme il pleut sur la ville.
Quelle est cette langueur
Qui pénêtre mon coeur ?
O bruit doux de la pluie
Par terre et sur les toits !
Pour un coeur qui s’ennuie,
O le chant de la pluie !
Il pleure sans raison
Dans ce coeur qui s’écoeure.
Quoi ! nulle trahison ?
Ce deuil est sans raison.
C’est bien la pire peine
De ne savoir pourquoi,
Sans amour et sans haine,
Mon coeur a tant de peine.
Paul Verlaine
Interesting. I just went agoogling and found out that Paul Verlaine was born on March 30, 1844. He shared a birthday with the WWI soldier poet, Julian Grenfell (March 30, 1888), whose poem I just mentioned the other day.
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