I

MALLARMÉ: POST POEMS

I
Their laugh with equal splendour
Rings out whenever you go
To Monsieur and Madame Whistler,
Rue Antique du Bac, 1-1-0.

II
23 Rue Ballu, as springtime
Arrives, I express to M. Degas
My satisfaction that he rhymes
With the flower of the syringas.

III
Monet, whose vision’s led astray
Neither by summer nor winter,
Lives, while he’s painting, at Giverny,
Not far from Vernon, in the Eure.

IV
Villa des Arts, near Avenue de
Clichy, Monsieur Renoir’s at work.
In front of a naked shoulder
He grinds something other than black¹.

V
To Madame Laurent, Méry,
Who lives far from the profane,
In her maisonette, very
Select, at 9 Boulevard Lannes.

VI
Amusing herself, refreshing
Her charming liver or spleen:
Madame Méry Laurent,
With waters of Savoie
                                  Evian.

VII
In his overcoat of astrakhan,
To keep out the winds of jealousy,
Monsieur François Coppée in Caen,
Rue des Chanoines, is it three?

VIII
Monsieur Mendès, or Catullus,
To whom the muse from his palace,
Sends inspiration and billets-doux,
At 66 Rue Taitbout.

IX
Farewell to the elm and the chestnut tree!
Towering above the forest floor,
He’s back, de Régnier, Henri,
Rue, number six, Boccador.

X
Our friend Vielé-Griffin
Savours his period of star-
Dom, like a solitary tiffin,
At Nazelles in the Indre-et-Loire.

XI
When the amaranthine dawn looks
Over the bois, take these books
To Madame Eugène Manet
Rue, over there, Villejust, 40.

XII
Mademoiselle Ponsot, may
Our best wishes in full flower
Greet you at the Swiss Châlet,
Route de Trouville, Honfleur.

XIII
Rue de la Barouillère, number 8,
Where Mademoiselle Wrotnowska pales,
Elfin student, up too late,
Working hard at her scales.

XIV
If you need a good doctor, well –
One with no wig, not balding? –
Try dear old Doctor Hutinel,
De la Boétie – got it? – thirteen.

XV
Deep in Saint-James, Neuilly,
Dreamer, prudent and lucid,
Doctor Fournier thinks of only
One thing: courting the solitary orchid.

VI
Esteemed Augusta Holmès²,
Relative – and most fair –
Of the harp-playing kings and queens,
At 40, Rue Juliette Lamber.

XVII
22 Rue Lavoisier, Hear ye!
Project the riches of your throat,
Dear Madame Degrandi,
So high they penetrate our quiet.

XVIII
As age makes me grow heavier,
You, my thoughts, must take to the skies
For Rue, 11, Tratkir,
At the friendly Monsieur Séailles’.

XIX
Monsieur Grosclaude, at Montigny,
Takes careful aim at a leveret,
Or else, in his smart green livery,
Unnerringly casts his net.

XX
Unless he’s up in the clouds,
Or the land of the ripening Lychee,
Monsieur Léon Dierx, dude, round
The corner, Avenue Clichy.

XXI
Wrapped up in your warm gaberdeen,
Read this note, when you get it,
Out loud; 6 Cour Saint-François,
Rue, is it Moreau? dear Verlaine.

XXII
Méry Laurent, you can’t blame
The thermal springs for that –
Having rounded off the same,
The whitest of Auvergnates.

XXIII
Monsieur le Compte de Villiers
De l’Isle-Adam; whom we’re keen
To see amongst our familiars.
Paris, Place Clichy, sixteen.

XXIV
At fifty-five, Avenue
Bugeaud, this gracious Helleu,
Paints in an unknown colour,
Somewhere between blue and pleasure.

XXV
Rue Laugier, so slow to traverse,
At seventy-five jut out
The railings of a cherished spot:
Here paints, here dreams Rochegrosse.

XXVI
The poets having nothing but
The lyre, antique and bizarre,
Invoke Monsieur Lamoureux, at
Sixty-two Rue Saint-Lazare.

XXVII
To the Muses’ backbitten hack,
Apt to display his spleen,
The dazzling Monsieur Henri Becque,
At Rue de l’Arcade, seventeen.

XXVIII
Girls, flowers and ornamental gourds,
He responds to all with emotion:
Monsieur Elémir Bourges,
At Samois, Seine-et-Marne.

XXIX
All month long Paul Margueritte’s
Been riding a cob, not a stallion,
About the Haut-Samois streets,
Département de Seine-et-Marne.

XXX
Let the heavy knocker strike on
The door above which it’s raised,
Four, Rue – it opens up – Vignon,
To present you at Monsieur Duret’s.

XXXI
When, over the enlightened city,
The dawn flies off in red and bronze,
Deliver this note to thirty-
Two, Rue Chalgrin, Rougon’s.

XXXII
So the lady with soft
Winning airs at 9 Boulevard Lannes
Opens you, letter, like a heart,
With her nails’diaphanous span.

XXXIII
To the painter at Dupray,
I hope my verse delights you,
Charming fellow at work in Rue
D’Amsterdam, seventy-seven, eh?

XXXIV
That the very subtle Élisa,
Nymph of parterre and fan,
Without a tear, if it please her,
Should read me at Boulevard Lannes.

XXXV
To Monsieur Besson (Louis, I mean,
No need for formal relations):
To the very page he’s writing, ten
Boulevard des Italiens.

XXXVI
I’m happy that Robert de Bonnières
Lives far from noise and clamour,
At 7, in the clean air
Of your avenue, oh Villars.

XXXVII
M. Dujardin – tending his peony,
Since the distinguished villain
Lives at thirteen, Rue Spontini,
Despite that swan and Lohengrin.

XXXVIII
Rue, number two, des Dames,
                                              Few
At his soirées would so much as
Dream of a mind so sound and new
As Teodor Wyzewa’s.

XXXIX
Science being his gaoler,
The sage, Félix Wrotnowski,
Verses himself, Rue Barouillère,
In algebra, to be cliquey.

XL
He finds out, this Charles Morice, in
Various condominiums,
That a ceiling alone cannot confine
The wing that dictates his poems.

XLI
Dressed up in coat and tails, like you,
A thing that slightly embarrasses,
Go letter, for me, to twelve Rue
Durantin, Monsieur Marras’s.

XLII
The writer of many rondels on-
Ly feels the arrival of January
From the verse he writes for Delzant:
Six Place Saint-François-Xavier.

XLIII
Poets, vanished race of men,
Victor Margueritte’s one of them,
He’s lodging with his mother, Rue
Bellechasse, number forty-two.

XLIV
When rosy dawn spreads her lips
In front of Victor Margueritte,
At Rue Brongniart, Sèvres (where’s that?)
Blow him a stentorian kiss.

XLV
Over there! Number five, Sèvres,
Then stop at Rue, hello? Brongniart,
And snuff out your fake fevers,
Margueritte, Victor, idler.

XLVI
Let my silence stop on cue!
A new year greeting tries to wend
Its way to fifty-five Avenue
Bugeaud, to Monsieur Champsaur, friend.

XLVII
She who, like a grand master,
Sketches a startling portrait,
Victoria Dewintre,
She’s at Cité Gaillard, eight.

XLVIII
This young man is Willy Ponsot
Famed from the front and the rear,
Who bites a heart like an abricot,
Calvados, Honfleur – north of here.

XLIX
Marthe Duvivier, white feather
Shadowing a hat in brown.
Her voice pours out like a river
One, Rue Pierre – so broad – Charron.

L
To Madame Duvivier, Marthe.
If I were a baron,
This card would not want for art.
Rue, one or three, Pierre Charron.

LI
Madame Schneider, you continue
To charm no less than the princely
Nightingales in Avenue
Versailles, number 1-2-3.

LII
Lodging in Boulevard Rochechouart,
At number 2, my friend Léopold
Dauphin, he is – and this is his art –
More of a sylph than a kobold.

LIII
Who would not wish to be saved – true –
At the first opportunity,
By Doc Alfred Fournier, Rue –
Formerly Saint-Arnaud – Volney.

LIV
Willy Ponsot, whom we celebrate,
In profile, as from the rear,
Like a zebra owned by the state,
Calvados, Honfleur – north of here.

LV
To Will Ponsot, notorious
In profile, and from the rear,
Who lives in a boat that’s famous,
Calvados, Honfleur – north of here.

LVI
Plombières.
                  Lelère undertakes
To abolish our ailments –
Méry, whose smile illuminates
His thermal establishments.

LVII
Fly, albatross, feathers hoary,
Your aviary sheltered from winds,
To Avenue Malakoff, ninety-
Nine, home of Monsieur Evans.

LVIII
On the banks with bushes gleaming,
Stretched out under one or two,
Monsieur Bouillant Auguste dreaming,
Rue Oberkapmf, sixty-two.

LIX
Poem, up from your blotter,
Slip off to Madame Seignbos
At 1-3-3 Boulevard
Saint-Germain – fly delicious.

LX
The music of frisky children
Rings out, when Madame Grenier,
In the Chaussée D’Antin,
Thirty-nine, claps, or sings top A.

LXI
To Willy Ponsot, whom we worship,
In profile, and from the rear,
In his maritime tip
In Calvados, Honfleur – north of here.

LXII
Mademoiselle Wrotnowska, in
Celebrating her birth, spare
No gift, and let none be forgotten,
Rue, 8, de la Barouillère.

LXIII
My letter, don’t stop until
You reach the hand, small, familiar,
Of Wrotnowska, Gabrielle,
Eight Rue de la Barouillère.

LXIV
Mademoiselle Mélanie
Laurent pours tea at midnight
In the Dresden china which she
Keeps at the said Barouillère, eight.

LXV
By kisses chilled to the bone,
Or if you knew them, animé
Rue, number 89, de Rome,
Go to Mesdames Mallarmé.

LXVI
This word which hovered towards them
At Portrieux, la Roche-plate,
The Manet ladies’ retreat,
Now, in the Côtes-du-Nord, burst open.

LXVII
Fly with the photon
To Paraÿs, Lot-et-Garonne,
My heart, which is not
To be snared, save by the apricot.

LXVIII
Hid in her wood of scented pine,
Go, amidst the mint and sage,
Madame Méry Laurent find,
Grand Hôtel, Plombières, Vosges.

LXIX
Missive in sugary feet,
Off to the quiet green spot she loves,
Forty-seven Rue, yes, Lafitte,
Mademoiselle Abbéma’s.

LXX
Monsieur Vanier, fresh and keen,
Editor, come to check the masses,
Lives at number nineteen
Quai Saint-Michel, where water passes.

LXXI
To Mademoiselle Holmès
Augusta, in the forty odds
Rue Juliette Lamber (it remains
To say – she’s kin to the Gods).

LXXII
Paper, unless you’re very keen
To eat up all my hopes,
It’s at Rue de la Paix, fifteen,
You’ll be opened, at Evans’ house.

LXXIII
Fly to Siredey, twenty-three
Rue – elegant – Saint-Lazare.
That’s the doctor I trust – he
Can cure more than a strange catarrh.

LXXIV
Madame Madier whom we frequent
All too seldom. Letter, fly to
Where 50 fills the firmament,
Rue – oh, delights! – de Moscou.

LXXV
Behind the glass looking at you
My friend Grignon, Aline.
Watch out for her at 4 Rue
Nollet, sweet quatrain.

LXXVI
Forty-nine Rue Ampère
Madame, Madame Allys
Arsel, one who tempers
Jewels with the fleur-de-lys.

LXXVII
I say to Monsieur Léo,
Rue Royale, Taverne Weber,
Without speaking up too
Loudly – you’ve filled my soul with fire.

LXXVIII
Mademoiselle Gabrielle
Wrotnowska – lead on, lead on, oh pères,
Your dancing, prancing, glancing swell
To 8, Rue Barouillère.

LXXIX
Rue, 8, de la Barouillère.
My memory evokes a
Girl, beneath the branch of pear:
Gabrielle Wrotnowska.

LXXX
Monsieur Mallarmé. How perverse
To flee from us, in search of calm;
Oh, postman, go with this verse
To Valvins, Avon, Seine-et-Marne.

¹ Renoir was one of a number of impressionist artists who eliminated the colour black from their paintings.

² Augusta Holmès was an Irish composer, and mistress of Catulle Mendès.