Les Chimères - Gérard de Nerval

Nerval had his ups and downs, nervous breakdowns and penury. He wrote some regrettable poetry, made a translation of Faust that Goethe apparently considered superior to his original, knew serial unrequited love, and then produced in Les Chimères a set of sonnets that are quite remarkable.
 
Ride with the classical references and let through the esoteric power, immediacy and music:
 
“Je suis le Ténébreux, - le Veuf, - l’Inconsolé,
Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la Tour abolie:
Ma seule Étoile est morte, - et mon luth constellé
Porte le Soleil noir de la Mélancolie.”
(El Desdichado)
 
Yowza!
 
Nerval deserves a mention in any history of French Romanticism for having a pet lobster which he took for walks in Paris. He liked Thibault the lobster because it knew “the secrets of the deep.”