Locutions des Pierrots I

Les mares de vos, yeux aux joncs de cils,
Ô vaillante oisive femme,
Quand donc me renverront-ils
La Lune-levante de ma belle âme ?

Voilà tantôt une heure qu'en langueur
Mon cœur si simple s'abreuve
De vos vilaines rigueurs,
Avec le regard bon d'un terre-neuve,

Ah! madame, ce n'est vraiment pas bien,
Quand on n'est pas la Joconde,
D'en adopter le maintien
Pour induire en spleens tout bleus le pauv' monde!

Jules Laforgue

Hart Crane's English translation:

Your eyes, those pools with soft rushes,
O prodigal and wholly dilatory lady,
Come now, when will they restore me
The orient moon of my dapper affections?

For imminent is that moment when,
Because of your perverse austerities,
My crisp soul will be flooded by a languor
Bland as the wide gaze of a Newfoundland.

Ah, madame! truly it's not right
When one isn't the real Gioconda,
To adaptate her methods and deportment
For snaring the poor world in a blue funk.

The Expiration

SO, so, break off this last lamenting kiss,
Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away ;
Turn, thou ghost, that way, and let me turn this,
And let ourselves benight our happiest day.
We ask none leave to love ; nor will we owe
Any so cheap a death as saying, "Go."

Go ; and if that word have not quite killed thee,
Ease me with death, by bidding me go too.
Or, if it have, let my word work on me,
And a just office on a murderer do.
Except it be too late, to kill me so,
Being double dead, going, and bidding, "Go."

John Donne