''La Bonne Chanson'' is a collection of poems written by

Paul Verlaine Paul-Marie Verlaine (; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the ''fin de siècle'' in international and ...

from the winter of 1869 to the spring of 1870. Twenty-one poems belong to this group, and are addressed to sixteen-year-old Mathilde Mauté de Fleurville, whom he married in the same year (1870). The poems are a proclamation of love, using very direct terms, and some references to nature. Between 1892 and 1894,

Gabriel Fauré Gabriel Urbain Fauré (; 12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers ...

arranged nine of these poems as a

song cycle A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice ...

under the same name.

Sources

National Library of the Netherlands page, accessed 20 January 2010
French poetry collections Poetry by Paul Verlaine {{poetry-collection-stub fr:La Bonne Chanson (Fauré)