The Echo of Dear Voices

March 6, 2026

Le Feu Follet's Letter #79

The hour is not for poetry.
The hour is for poets.

To all those who preserve the voice of Humankind.
And to those who are made to fall silent.
To suspended time.

The hour is not for poetry.
The hour is for poets.

“Ofttimes I have this strange and penetrating dream:
An unknown woman whom I love and who loves me,
And who, though never changing, ever seems to be
Another — in whose eyes I see a well known gleam.

She understands. My heart that doth transparent seem
For her alone, alas, ceases also to be
For her, alone, a problem; and her tears fall free
Upon my pallid brow, refreshing as a stream.

Brunette, or blonde, or Titian-haired? I do not know!
Her name? 'Twas sweet I well recall when spoken low,
As sweet as those beloved ones by Life exiled.

Her glance is that of statues — looks that vaguely thrill —
And for her voice — calm, faintly sounding, gravely mild,
It hath the echo of dear voices long since still *.”

To all those who preserve the voice of Humankind.

And to those who are made to fall silent.

To suspended time.

*Translation by Bergen Weeks Applegate, “My Familiar Dream”
in Paul Verlaine: His Absinthe-Tinted Song (1916)

FOCUS. Poëmes saturniens by Paul Verlaine.

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SEE THE BOOK

SELECTION. Poetry: these flesh-born voices.

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BROWSE THE SELECTION

INVESTIGATION. Didière Gillet, or The Privilege of Women.

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Didière GILLET
La subtile et naïve recherche de l'hérésie.

[The Subtle and Artless Inquiry into Heresy]

An exceptionally rare work of the Catholic Counter-Reformation by Didière Gillet, self-described as "une simple femme de village," [a simple peasant woman] virtually unknown to modern scholarship.

READ THE INVESTIGATION

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