Nothing Like a Melancholic Poem to Enliven the Atmosphere

Violins complain
Of autumn again,
They sob and moan.
And my heartstrings ache
Like the song they make,
A monotone.



Suffocating, drowned,
And hollowly, sound
The midnight chimes.



Then the days return
I knew, and I mourn
For bygone times.



And I fall and drift
With the winds that lift
My heavy grief.
Here and there they blow,
And I rise and go
Like a dead leaf.

—Paul Verlaine