"This Is The End Of All The Songs Man Sings"

The arrival of poetic moods is a funny thing.  In this part of the world, we are in the midst of a summer-like week:  all is bright and warm and abloom.  Yet, I have unaccountably found myself drawn into the twilit, misty, dream-laden, death-haunted world of the Decadent poets of the Nineties (the 1890s, that is).  Moreover, I am feeling perfectly serene and equable.  I am not cultivating gloom and melancholy.  As a matter of fact, reading their poetry makes me feel quite cheerful and at peace with the world.

Here, for instance, is the quintessential Nineties poem by the quintessential Nineties poet.  And a lovely poem it is.

Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
          Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
          We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
          Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
          Within a dream.

Ernest Dowson, Verses (1896).

The title of the poem comes from Horace's Odes, I.iv, line 15, and may be translated as: "the short span of our life forbids us to indulge in a long-term hope."  Ernest Dowson, Collected Poems (edited by R. K. R. Thornton) (University of Birmingham Press 2003), page 225.

Paul Maitland, "Kensington Gardens" (c. 1890)

"Vitae summa brevis" is a carefree stroll in the park compared with this:

                                Dregs

The fire is out, and spent the warmth thereof,
(This is the end of every song man sings!)
The golden wine is drunk, the dregs remain,
Bitter as wormwood and as salt as pain;
And health and hope have gone the way of love
Into the drear oblivion of lost things.
Ghosts go along with us until the end;
This was a mistress, this, perhaps, a friend.
With pale, indifferent eyes, we sit and wait
For the dropt curtain and the closing gate:
This is the end of all the songs man sings.

Ernest Dowson, Decorations: In Verse and Prose (1899).

The basic elements of a Nineties poem are all here: "golden wine," ghosts, "pale, indifferent eyes," and wormwood (the source of absinthe, mais oui). And I cannot help but be seduced by the music of it all.  "This is the end of all the songs man sings" is wonderful, both in sound and sense.

Paul Maitland, "The Flower Walk, Kensington Gardens" (c. 1897)

Every respectable Decadent poet has to pay a visit to Hades and its five rivers.  In this case, the river is Acheron, haunt of Charon the Ferryman. However, Charon does not make an appearance here.  In his stead, we have a more illustrious figure:  Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.

          Villanelle of Acheron

By the pale marge of Acheron,
     Methinks we shall pass restfully,
Beyond the scope of any sun.

There all men hie them one by one,
     Far from the stress of earth and sea,
By the pale marge of Acheron.

'Tis well when life and love is done,
     'Tis very well at last to be,
Beyond the scope of any sun.

No busy voices there shall stun
     Our ears:  the stream flows silently
By the pale marge of Acheron.

There is the crown of labour won,
     The sleep of immortality,
Beyond the scope of any sun.

Life, of thy gifts I will have none,
     My queen is that Persephone,
By the pale marge of Acheron,
     Beyond the scope of any sun.

Ernest Dowson, Ibid.

Mind you, I am not in any way mocking these poems.  I admire them a great deal, and they always bring me pleasure.  No one does this sort of thing better than the Nineties poets.

Paul Maitland, "Fall of the Leaves, Kensington Gardens" (c. 1900)