Explore "Verlaine" by Bliss Carman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Avid of life and love, insatiate vagabond, / With quest too furious for the graal he would have won, / He flung himself at the eternal sky, as one / Wrenching his chains but impotent to burst the bond.
Yet under the revolt, the revel, the despond, / What pools of innocence, what crystal benison! / As through a riven mist that glowers in the sun, / A stretch of God's blue calm glassed in a virgin pond.
Prowler of obscene streets that riot reek along, / And aisles with incense numb and gardens mad with rose, / Monastic cells and dreams of dim brocaded lawns,
Death, which has set the calm of Time upon his song, / Surely upon his soul has kissed the same repose / In some fair heaven the Christ has set apart for Fauns.