Anniversary January 1897
The black rock enraged that the north wind rolls it on
Will not stop itself, nor, under pious hands, still
Cease testing its resemblance to human ill
As if to bless some fatal cast of bronze.
Here nearly always if the ring-dove coos
This immaterial grief with many a fold of cloud
Crushes the ripe star of tomorrows, whose crowd
Will be silvered by its scintillations. Who
Following the solitary leap
External now of our vagabond seeks
Verlaine? Hes hidden in the grass, Verlaine
Only to catch, naïvely, not drying it with his breath
And without the lip drinking there, at peace again,
A shallow stream thats slandered, and named Death.
