Guillaume Apollinaire
The Gypsy
(Alcools: La tzigane)
The gypsy knew in advance
Our two lives star-crossed by night
We said farewell to her and then
from that deep well Hope began
Love heavy a performing bear
Danced upright when we wanted
And the blue bird lost his plumes
And the beggars lost their Ave
We knew quite well that we were damned
But hope of love in the street
Made us think hand in hand
Of what the Gypsy did foresee
The Sign
(Alcools: Signe)
I am bound to the King of the Sign of Autumn
Parting I love the fruits I detest the flowers
I regret every one of the kisses that I’ve given
Such a bitter walnut tells his grief to the showers
My Autumn eternal O my spiritual season
The hands of lost lovers juggle with your sun
A spouse follows me it’s my fatal shadow
The doves take flight this evening their last one
One Evening
(Alcools: Un soir)
An eagle descends from this sky white with archangels
And you
sustain me
Let them tremble a long while all these lamps
Pray pray
for me
The city’s metallic and it’s the only star
Drowned in
your blue eyes
When the tramways run spurting pale fire
Over the
twittering birds
And all that trembles in your eyes of my dreams
That a
lonely man drinks
Under flames of gas red like a false dawn
O clothed
your arm is lifted
See the speaker stick his tongue out at the listeners
A phantom
has committed suicide
The apostle of the fig-tree hangs and slowly rots
Let us play
this love out then to the end
Bells with clear chimes announce your birth
See
The streets are garlanded and the palms advance
Towards thee
Moonlight
(Alcools: Clair de Lune)
Mellifluent moon on the lips of the maddened
The orchards and towns are greedy tonight
The stars appear like the image of bees
Of this luminous honey that offends the vines
For now all sweet in their fall from the sky
Each ray of moonlight’s a ray of honey
Now hid I conceive the sweetest adventure
I fear stings of fire from this Polar bee
that sets these deceptive rays in my hands
And takes its moon-honey to the rose of the winds
Autumn Ill
(Alcools: Automne malade)
Autumn ill and adored
You die when the hurricane blows in the roseries
When it has snowed
In the orchard trees
Poor autumn
Dead in whiteness and riches
Of snow and ripe fruits
Deep in the sky
The sparrow hawks cry
Over the sprites with green hair the dwarfs
Who’ve never been loved
In the far tree-lines
the stags are groaning
And how I love O season how I love your rumbling
The falling fruits that no one gathers
The wind the forest that are tumbling
All their tears in autumn leaf by leaf
The leaves
You press
A crowd
That flows
The life
That goes
Hotels
(Alcools: Hôtels)
The room is free
Each for himself
A new arrival
Pays by the month
The boss is doubtful
Whether you’ll pay
Like a top
I spin on the way
The traffic noise
My neighbour gross
Who puffs an acrid
English smoke
O La Vallière
Who limps and smiles
In my prayers
The bedside table
And all the company
in this hotel
know the languages
of Babel
Let’s shut our doors
With a double lock
And each adore
his lonely love
Hunting Horns
(Alcools: Cors de chasse)
Our story’s noble as its tragic
like the grimace of a tyrant
no drama’s chance or magic
no detail that’s indifferent
makes our great love pathetic
And Thomas de Quincey drinking
Opiate poison sweet and chaste
Of his poor Anne went dreaming
We pass we pass since all must pass
Often I’ll be returning
Memories are hunting horns alas
whose note along the wind is dying