All eighteen lines of Chanson d'automne in the original French with an English rendering, why they sound like music, and how two of them served as a signal in June 1944.
Read the poem
The title in italics, the poet's name under a fine rule, then the three stanzas in a single narrow column that drifts down like a leaf. Printed on thick matte eco-friendly paper.
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Les sanglots longsDes violonsDe l'automneBlessent mon cœurD'une langueurMonotone.
Tout suffocantEt blême, quandSonne l'heure,Je me souviensDes jours anciensEt je pleure ;
Et je m'en vaisAu vent mauvaisQui m'emporteDeçà, delà,Pareil à laFeuille morte.
A plain English rendering, offered as a reading aid. The poster keeps the original French.
The long sobs of the violins of autumn wound my heart with a monotonous languor.
All choking and pale, when the hour strikes, I remember the old days and I weep;
And I go off in the ill wind that carries me here and there, like a dead leaf.
Almost nothing, and that is deliberate. A sound of autumn wounds the poet, an hour strikes, a memory rises, and he drifts off like a dead leaf. There is no story, no character, no place: only a state, caught in eighteen tiny lines.
Verlaine was twenty-two when Poèmes saturniens, his first collection, appeared. What he is after here he would later put into words in his Art poétique: "De la musique avant toute chose," music before all else. Chanson d'automne is the demonstration written before the theory, a poem where meaning arrives through the ear.
Because a poem everyone knows by heart makes a perfect code. On June 1, 1944, the BBC broadcast the opening lines of the song among its personal messages: for the saboteurs of the Ventriloquist network, in the Sologne region, they meant "stand by." On June 5 at 9:15 p.m., the rest of the poem ordered them to act, a few hours before the Normandy landings. On air, the words heard were in fact "bercent mon cœur," as in the song Charles Trenet had drawn from the poem in 1941.
It is often said that these lines announced the landings to the whole Resistance: that is a legend, popularized by Cornelius Ryan, the author of The Longest Day. The truth is more beautiful still. The melancholy of a young man of 1866 served, seventy-eight years later, to set off sabotage on the railway lines.
Three stanzas of six very short lines: two lines of four syllables, one of three, and so on, on rhymes that come back quickly. Sound carries the emotion before the images do.
"Blessent mon cœur d'une langueur monotone."
Everything lies in the sounds: the nasal vowels of "sanglots longs," "violons," "automne" stretch the line like a held note. And "monotone," set alone on its line, begins to drag all by itself.
"Je me souviens des jours anciens et je pleure."
The rhythm breaks: choking, pale, the hour striking. The memory is never told, it has no content at all, and that emptiness is what makes it universal: everyone fills it with their own.
"Pareil à la feuille morte."
The poet no longer decides anything, he is carried away. "Deçà, delà," here and there, mimics the wind, and the closing comparison is cut in two by the line break, as though the sentence itself were letting go.
Because the white space is part of the poem. In 50x70 cm (20x28 in), the column of very short lines holds the center of the sheet and leaves a wide, calm space all around it, like an October sky. From afar, you see a shape drifting down; up close, you read the song.
Above a sofa, a console or in an entryway, it is the poem that comes back on its own every year, with the first days of bad weather.
To read on: The Sleeper of the Valley by Rimbaud, Verlaine's friend, and our fall wall decor guide for a seasonal wall.
With Watercolor Sunset, an exclusive studio creation: gray clouds heavy with rain, pierced by a golden light. It is the sky of the song, the one where the ill wind carries off the leaves. In the same section of Poèmes saturniens, Paysages tristes, Verlaine opens with "Soleils couchants," setting suns.
Side by side, the column of verse on one side and the sky on the other, the two posters make an autumn corner that lasts all year. The gray gives the wall depth, the gold warms the cream paper.
In 30x40, 40x50 or 50x70 cm (12x16, 16x20 or 20x28 in).
From Poèmes saturniens, Paul Verlaine's first collection, published in 1866. It is the fifth poem in the section Paysages tristes.
A state rather than a story: a sound of autumn wounds the poet, an hour strikes, the memory of the old days makes him weep, and he lets the wind carry him off like a dead leaf.
Three stanzas of six very short lines, of four or three syllables, with closely spaced rhymes. That brief form gives the poem the feel of a melody.
As a coded message for the Ventriloquist Resistance network: on June 1, 1944, the opening lines told the saboteurs to stand by; on June 5 at 9:15 p.m., the rest of the poem ordered them to act, on the eve of the landings.
He was twenty-two when Poèmes saturniens was published, in 1866.
Yes: Heure d'été sets the whole of Chanson d'automne as a poster, in 30x40, 40x50 or 50x70 cm (12x16, 16x20 or 20x28 in), on thick matte eco-friendly paper.
Chanson d'automne stays in the memory without effort and comes back on its own, every year, with the first days of bad weather. If it is one of yours, give it a place where you can see it every day.
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