THE LOVER OF NATURE

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Paris being not a spit

Worth spittin, I am gonna split.

But ‘ow my soul’s a poet’s innit,

Sundays when me gaff I quit,

The country’s bout as cool as shit.

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The overland’s a wheelbarrer

Cartin’ us out past the suburbs

Into bits of blue for yer

Where the bubbly may not flow

But’s on the out an where we go.

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She puts on er Snow-white frock

My white pipe’s what I gets out

Ain’t no shirt, but I got cuffs.

Helagance reigns. They oik out roughs

From where we likes to stroll about.

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Ere we are, doll, how bout that?

Dozen oysters, same as Barrett’s,

Wenches like you get in tart shops,

Cos it’s just like home with Pops

Out on manoeuvres, gettit?

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Seems my tool is what you covet.

Sure, I’ll sign an think nowt of it.

Better country than deported.

Even should it get me snorted,

Can’t be worse, just get it sorted.

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Paul Verlaine 1844-1896

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The poem came out in 1890, but was written around 1871 (time of the Franco-Prussian War – when Forain was a friend of Rimbaud and Verlaine). However it was wrongly given the title “A Rogue takes a Stroll in the Country” by Huysmans in his Modern Art. Forain did a notebook of watercolors inspired by each verse of this poem, and this is one of the two which survive. He also did this wonderful sketch of Rimbaud.