One of Verlaine's last posthumously published poems which was originally intended to be the subject of a book, as indicated in the title.
Esther was the name given to his last companion, Philomène Boudin, a prostitute nicknamed "Esther", whom he met in 1890 on boulevard Saint-Michel. This relationship inspired many poems published in several collections. He entrusts him with minor services, in particular his commissions with the publisher Vanier to ask him for money. He has a fluctuating relationship with Philomène, alternating between her and her partner at the time Eugénie Krantz.

This poem of four quatrains, working manuscript, with many erasures and corrections, is the second part of the diptych "The Book of Esther", published in 1903 in the Posthumous Works appended to Dedications.

“Phi..B…it's almost the moon,
But the moon that I see
When you give in to my voice,
Who probably bothers you

But so sincere that finally
You hear it and lift me up
Until the charms that in vain
Blasphemy [crossed out word] so much and false voice,

But that I who am nothing,
Nothing more than their hygiene
To these yours, (mine?) charms well
Beloved, I torch without gene

And why ? Because after all
This merry-go-round that lightens me up,
Of a weight so dear at the start,
[line crossed out]
Towards even better, I lighten up

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