VERLAINE, Paul (1844–1896).

A poem from his youth dated ‘9 September 1864’ (Verlaine was twenty years old). This sonnet was published in Volume III of the Œuvres posthumes. The manuscript, in Verlaine’s early handwriting, bears this note in pencil: ‘M. Delahaye asserts that this piece is indeed by Verlaine’. “A strapping lad! Eighteen years old, broad shoulders; hands that could tear your head from your shoulders. A low, hard forehead, red hair, cut close to the scalp. Then, when he dances, he has, my word, a bold air about him, the fellow!”... Provenance: Colonel Daniel Sickles’ Library, XV, no. 6604.