Refrain
a group of words forming a phrase or sentence and consisting of one or more lines repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza.
In Paris With You
James Fenton
Don't talk to me of love. I've had an earful
And I get tearful when I've downed a drink or two.
I'm one of your talking wounded.
I'm a hostage. I'm maroonded.
But I'm in Paris with you.
Yes I'm angry at the way I've been bamboozled
And resentful at the mess I've been through.
I admit I'm on the rebound
And I don't care where are we bound.
I'm in Paris with you.
Do you mind if we do not go to the Louvre
If we say sod off to sodding Notre Dame,
If we skip the Champs Elysées
And remain here in this sleazy
Old hotel room
Doing this and that
To what and whom
Learning who you are,
Learning what I am.
Don't talk to me of love. Let's talk of Paris,
The little bit of Paris in our view.
There's that crack across the ceiling
And the hotel walls are peeling
And I'm in Paris with you.
Don't talk to me of love. Let's talk of Paris.
I'm in Paris with the slightest thing you do.
I'm in Paris with your eyes, your mouth,
I'm in Paris with... all points south.
Am I embarrassing you?
I'm in Paris with you.
“In Paris With You” by James Fenton is a poem about love which rejects sentimentality and yet, in its simplicity, manages to convey it all the more. The refrain in this poem is “I’m in Paris with you”. A refrain is a group of words forming a phrase or sentence and consisting of one or more lines repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza. Fenton repeats this line numerous times in the last stanza, as well as in the previous stanzas in the poem to emphasize how much he enjoys being in Paris with the one he loves.
"The lullaby is the spell whereby the mother attempts to transform herself back from an ogre to a saint." ~James Fenton
James Fenton
Poet and essayist, born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, EC England, UK. Educated at Repton and Magdalen College, Oxford, his first collections of poems, Terminal Moraine (1972), won the Eric Gregory Award. He was war correspondent for the New Statesman, reporting most notably on the fall of Saigon. In 1983 he accompanied the writer Redmond O'Hanlon (1947– ) through Borneo. His main works of poetry include Partingtime Hall (together with John Fuller), The Memory of War (1982), Children in Exile: Poems 1968–83 (1984), and Out of Danger (1993). He became professor of poetry at Oxford in 1994. He has been compared to W H Auden for his playful yet intellectually rigorous verse.
(http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9293029)
