Paul Verlaine: "O My God, You Have Wounded Me With Love"
Introduction Even a cursed poet can write a holy poem. Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) was such a poet. Though much of his life was spent in violence, debauchery, alcoholism, and addiction, he had a brief time when he experienced a return to the faith, while in prison for shooting his lover in the wrist (deemed by the courts "attempted murder"). Most of the poems from this time were published in his 1880 collection Sagesse (Wisdom) . The following poem is one such poem, from the time when Verlaine had "prostrated before the long-unknown Altar...adores the All-Good and invokes the Almighty, sworn son of the Church, the last in merits, but full of good will" (Preface to Sagesse ). The poem is made of tercets in which lines 1 and 3 are identical, and line 2 unique. Other than the identical rhymes of lines 1 and 3 of each tercet, no rhyme scheme is involved. My translation aims at accuracy of meaning rather than any attempt to replicate ...