Alfred de Musset’s La Nuit de Mai is an extended poetic dialog between the Poet and the Muse. The Muse urges the poet to sing/write in the efflorescence of spring. The Poet keeps moping, saying his sadness is too intense to be spoken. The Muse hits some seductive, sexual raptures, but the Poet, too busy immured in his melancholy, seems not to notice. Idiot.

In La Nuit d’Aout and La Nuit d’Octobre, the relationship between le Poete et la Muse continues with erotic charge, but I won’t go into those parts now. I’m just happy that I have rediscovered La Nuit de Mai, especially now that I’m thinking about Anneka and Will’s muses, who probably use de Musset’s Nuits cycle for their own devices.