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Renée Vivien

The Symbolist poet Renée Vivien was born on June 11, 1877, as Pauline Mary Tarn in Paddington, England. Her father, John Tarn, was a well-off merchant from Scotland; her mother, Mary Gillet Bennett, was an

Words to My Friend

by Renée Vivien (1877–1909)

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9      <date ty="birth" circa="false" suffix="ad">1877</date>
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16

Understand me: I am a mediocre being,

Not good, not very bad, peaceful, a bit cunning.

I detest heavy perfume and shrill voices,

And gray is more dear to me than scarlet or ocher.

I love the dying day which grows dim by degrees,

A fire, the cloistered intimacy of a room

Where the lamps, veiling their amber transparencies,

Redden the antique bronze and turn the gray stoneware blue.

My eyes drop to the carpet smoother than sand,

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