In the same vein, full of a diaphanous gaiety light as the flutter of dragon-fly wings, is that "caprice" in his Fêtes Galantes entitled Fantoches. Scaramouche et Pucinella Qu'un mauvais dessein rassembla Gesticulent, noirs sur la lune. Cependant l'excellent docteur Bolonais cueille avec lenteur Des simples parmi l'herbe brune. Lors sa fille, piquant minois Sous la charmille, en tapinois Se glisse demi-nue, en quête De son beau pirate espagnol Dont un langoureux rossignol Clame la détresse a tue-tête. Is that not worthy of an illustration by Aubrey Beardsley? And yet has it not something more naive, more infantile, than most modern trifles of that sort? Does not it somehow suggest Grimm's Fairy Stories? There is one mood of Paul Verlaine, quite different from this, which is extremely interesting if only for its introduction into poetry of a certain impish malice which we do not as a rule associate with poetry at all. Such is the poem called Les Indolents, with its ribald refrain, like the laughter of a light-footed Puck flitting across the moon-lit lawns, of Hi! Hi! Hi! les amants bizarres! . . . . Eurent l'inexpiable tort D'ajourner une exquise mort. Hi! Hi! Hi! les amants bizarres! Such also are those extraordinary verses under the title Colloque Sentimental which trouble one's imagination with so penetrating a chill of shivering disillusionment. For some reason or other my own mind always associates these terrible lines with a particular corner of a public garden in Halifax, Yorkshire; where I seem to have seen two figures once; seen them with a glacial pang of pain that was like the stab of a dagger of ice frozen from a poisoned well. Dans le vieux pare solitaire et glacé Deux formes ont tout à l'heure passé. Leurs yeux sont morts et leurs lèvres sont molles Et l'on entend à peine leurs paroles. Dans le vieux pare solitaire et glacé Deux spectres ont évoqué le passé. --Qu'il était bleu, le ciel, et grand l'espoir! --L'espoir a fui, vaincu, vers le ciel noir. I have omitted the bitter dialogue--as desolate and hollow in its frozen retorts as the echoes of iron heels in a granite sepulchre--but the whole piece has a petrified forlornness about it which somehow reminds one of certain verses of Mr. Thomas Hardy. One of my own favourite poems of Verlaine is one whose weird and strange beauty will appeal, I fear, to few readers of these sketches; but if I could put into words the indescribable power which it exercises over my own mood I should be doing something to mitigate its remoteness from normal feelings. It is a wild mad thing, this poem--a fantasia upon a melancholy and terrible truth--but it has the power of launching one's mind down long and perilous tides of speculation.