Fêtes galantes, première série, L. 80

Verlaine's poem is a quiet love scene. The speaker asks a lover to sit still in the half-light of a shaded grove, half-close the eyes, fold the arms and let every wish go, while a breeze lulls them. At nightfall a nightingale sings, which the poem calls the voice of their despair. That song, free of any strict beat, opens the music in the Introduction and returns in the coda. The first main section (A) follows, then a contrasting section (B), and the opening music comes back in A′.

1. 0:00Introduction
2. A