VERLAINE PAUL (1844-1896)

Lot 489
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3000 - 4000 EUR
VERLAINE PAUL (1844-1896)
To Charles de Sivry, Autograph poem signed titled "to Charles de SIVRY" One and ½ pages in-8°, slnd. Poem written in purple pencil then corrected and signed in black ink by Verlaine. On the front of the folio, Verlaine's sonnet, in first draft, in honor of his musician friend Charles de SIVRY (1848.1900), published in his collection "Dédicaces" (XXIV) in March 1890. "Artist, you, to the point of fantasy, Poet, I, to the point of foolishness, Here we are, the beard half gray, Me crazy about verses and you about music. Here we are, not without some work, Rich, I of the water of the Hippocrene, When you of the songs of the Siren, Ripe for glory and its scaffolds. Bah! We shall have had our pleasure Which is not everyone's And the leisure of our desire. Also let us bless the deep peace That for lack of a less subtle treasure gave us these so be it". On the reverse, a fragment of the alexandrine poem "Sois de bronze et de marbre" published in his collection "Bonheur" (XIV) in 1891, also written in purple pencil by Verlaine. "Be of bronze and marble and above all be of flesh Certainly, take the necessary pride more dear, For your fight with vain contingencies; Than the hairs of your beard or the blood of your veins; But live, live to suffer, suffer to expiate, Atone and go away to live and then come back to pray" Sivry met Paul Verlaine, in 1868 at the Chat Noir, a cabaret where he was the pianist He assiduously frequented with the poet the dinners of the Vilainsbonshommes, the circle of the Zutist poets. Verlaine married in 1870, his half-sister Mathilde Mauté de Fleurville. In spite of an illegible autograph mention, the poems are nevertheless readable. Extremely rare poem of first draft.
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