Parisian War Song
|
Spring is evidently here; for The ascent of Thiers and Picard From the green Estates lays Its splendours wide open! ______
O May! What delirious bare bums! O Sèvres Meudon, Bagneux, Asnières, Listen now to the welcome arrivals Scattering springtime joys! ______
They have shakos, and sabers, and tom-toms, And none of the old candleboxes; And skiffs which have nev... nev... Are cutting the lake of bloodstained waters! ______
More than ever before, we roister, As on to our ant-heaps come Tumbling the yellow heads, On these extraordinary dawns: ______
Thiers and Picard are Cupids; And beheaders of sunflowers too; They paint Corots with insecticide: Look how their tropes de-cockchafer the trees... ______
They're familiars of the Great What's-his-name!... And Favre, lying among the irisis, Blinks and weeps crocodile tears, And sniffs his peppery sniff! ______
The Big City has hot cobblestones, In spite of your showers of paraffin; And decidedly we shall have To liven you up in your parts... ______
And the Rustics who take their ease In long squattings, Will hear boughs breaking Among the red rustlings. |
|
- As translated by Oliver Bernard: Arthur Rimbaud, Collected Poems (1962). - Text of the letter to Paul Demeny, May 15, 1871.
|
» Index of Poems » Poems » Parisian War Song
|
