Songs without Words, translated from Romances sans paroles, is the poetry collection in which, unabashedly, Paul Verlaine becomes himself and in the process becomes the iconic poet of 19th-century France. A book of musical sequences, it seeks and finds exquisite purity of expression, and it is a book of intertwining narratives also, each of which entertains abasements and ecstasies, crises, crimes, and expiations. Written during Verlaine’s wanderings with the poet Arthur Rimbaud, the focus of his infatuation and the downfall of his marriage and home life, exhaustion is everywhere counterpoised with exaltation, squalor with splendor. And yet, in nearly every syllable, the dignity of poetry and of human affections proves inviolable. This collection has been expertly translated from the French while retaining the spirit of the original.