The Penguin Book of French Poetry Read online

  At the end of the bridge that crushes the water, a policeman has taken out his notebook.

  Le ciel s’est couvert de nuit et un glas tinte dans le soir, et les vieux rentiers bien vite ont fermé leurs volets; mais leurs chiens se sauvent. Tout le monde est parti, une lanterne – là-bas – s’est cachée derrière un tronc noir. Debout dans le ruisseau de la rue, je sens l’eau grasse et boueuse aspirer tout le sang de mon corps.

  The sky has covered itself in darkness and a knell tolls in the evening, and the old men of independent means have closed their shutters pretty swiftly; but their dogs run off. Everyone has gone, a lantern – there – has hidden itself behind a black trunk. Standing in the gutter of the street, I feel the greasy, muddy water sucking away all the blood in my body.

  Présence de Dieu

  Une nuit que je parcourais le ciel amour

  une nuit de douce mère

  où les étoiles étaient les feux du retour

  et diaprées comme l’arc-en-ciel

  une nuit que les étoiles disaient: ‘Je reviens!’

  Leur pitié saignait de mon sans repos

  Car le malheur a percé mes pieds et mes mains

  O résignation, c’est toi qui chantes le laus

  Une nuit que les étoiles couvaient mon vol

  j’aperçus un astre qui m’approchait

  et il me versait un opium qui rend fol

  et l’astre me séduisait avec son oeil épais.

  Tes caresses désenchevêtrent mes membres.

  L’amour n’attend pas, il n’attend pas.

  Il est astre et je suis plante: nous sommes ensemble

  Presence of God

  One night as I was surveying the love sky / a gentle mother night when the stars were the signal-lights of homecoming and dappled like the rainbow / a night when the stars said: ‘I am coming again!’ Their pity bled for my restlessness For misfortune has pierced my feet and my hands O resignation, it is you who sing the laud1 On a night when the stars brooded over my flight I saw a star approaching me and it poured for me an opium of delirium and the star beguiled me with its dense eye. Your caresses disentangled my limbs. Love does not wait, it does not wait. It is a star and I am a plant: we are together You will make me grow like a panorama. And when I was near the star-climax, I saw that it was the Beautiful God, the Conceiver of the world, the Lord, the Gentleman-Genius. Then he absorbed me like a liquid: this is a secret and there are no words to say that my blood ebbs into Him God as into a single heart.

  Tu me feras pousser comme un panorama.

  Et quand je fus près de l’astre-événement,

  je vis que c’ètait le Beau Dieu, le Concepteur

  du monde, le Seigneur, le Génie-Gentleman.

  Alors il m’absorba comme une liqueur:

  c’est un secret et il n’y a pas de mots pour dire

  que mon sang en Lui Dieu se retire

  comme en un seul cœur.

  Guillaume Apollinaire

  (1880–1918)

  This is the pen-name of Wilhelm Albert Vladimir Alexandre Apollinaris de Kostrowitski, the illegitimate son of a nomadic Polish mother and an unknown father, probably an Italian army officer whose absence and obscurity provided the first of many identity problems for the rootless young poet. Apollinaire sought an answer in Paris, at the turn of the century, to his sense of statelessness. He quickly developed a wide range of literary and artistic friendships, and became a colourful and gregarious leader of the modernist movement as well as a fervent advocate in print of Cubist painting. His larger-than-life personality, with its perplexing mixture of extrovert buffoonery and introvert vulnerability, gave him a legendary status which at times has perhaps obscured a proper perception of his work.

  Apollinaire’s reputation reached its peak with the publication of Alcools in 1913. The success of this innovative volume helped him recover from the trauma of wrongful arrest and imprisonment in 1911, on suspicion of involvement in the theft of the ‘Mona Lisa’.

  He played many roles, and arguably they were all authentic. He was an immensely energetic man, provocative, mysterious and temperamental; a talented raconteur, a gargantuan eater and drinker, a great lover, an intermittently devout Catholic, a generous friend, a clown and a scholar and a tragic hero. Above all he was an artistic revolutionary exploring new areas of consciousness with a courage and integrity that he also brought to bear on his periodic despair at the ending of relationships.

  Apollinaire’s final commitment was to France itself, his adopted country. In 1914 he was an enthusiastic and sincerely proud recruit, first into the artillery and then to the front-line trenches. A serious head wound brought him back to Paris after an operation in 1916, subject to fainting fits and partial paralysis, but still writing poetry with a voice perhaps more assured than before. He assembled his second major volume, Calligrammes, with its typographical experiments; wrote further articles on the arts and a Jarryesque play, Les Mamelles de Tirésias; coined the word ‘Surrealism’; worked as a censor; delivered a significant lecture entitled ‘L’Esprit nouveau et les poètes’; and in May 1918 married the last of a series of lovers, Jacqueline Kolb (‘la jolie rousse’). In November of that year he died of complications following an attack of influenza. His funeral moved, with an irony he would have appreciated, through Paris streets decked for the Armistice.

  A prophet and exponent of modernism who demanded total expressive freedom, Apollinaire nevertheless paid frequent homage to a French literary tradition, both popular and refined, that he loved and respected not so much in spite of his cosmopolitan upbringing as because of it. That tradition was not to be smashed by the new adventurers but reconstructed, its elements reselected and surprisingly juxtaposed to reflect the accelerated discontinuity of experience and simultaneity of perception of the modern artist. Order and Adventure are his two poles, sometimes approaching integration.

  The new spirit brings an increased concern for the visual form of the poem on the page, favouring to some extent the eye over the ear, though the musicality of Apollinaire’s best work remains memorable. Syntactic units – phrase, line, stanza – are strongly articulated with an intrinsic rhythmical logic, and must be perceived in their relationship with the intervening and surrounding blank spaces. Punctuation is abolished, at least partly through the prompting of Cendrars, in the interests of a more authentic, simultaneous notation of the flux of consciousness, that wanderer through both the streets of Paris and the starry skies. As with Reverdy, mimesis is broken in favour of an autonomous, concrete art form based on bold juxtaposition of imagery (see introduction to Reverdy), as the Cubist urge battles with the problem of language and the conventionally linear reception of it by the reader. Apollinaire’s extreme experiments in this direction are concentrated in Calligrammes, but in Alcools too the lyrical traditions and elegiac themes that underpin the free verse are challenged by this new demand, and the organization of the volume itself is more a matter of the surprise principle than of any chronological or thematic criteria.

  His style blends an awareness of metrical tradition with a new rhythmic and rhyming freedom, and his insistence on naturalness leads him into the frequent, wilfully incongruous and stimulating clashing of registers. Poetry for Apollinaire is to be found in all aspects of life, and he correspondingly rejects the notion of a rarefied, specialized mode of expression: ‘A falling handkerchief can be for the poet the lever with which he will lift up an entire universe.’ The poet translates the ordinary into the extraordinary, turning imaginative experience into myth through his burning creativity, throwing his past and present into ‘le brasier’ in pursuit of a sublime transformation. Thus he extends our consciousness by passing through and beyond the familiar. Unlike Mallarmé, who becomes clearer as you penetrate his opaque surface, Apollinaire is immediately transparent but mysterious and divergent beneath the surface; and in this, as in his whole artistic stance, he is seen as a forerunner of Surrealism. His work is uneven and does not always fulfil his intention
s, but Le Bestiaire (1911), Alcools and Calligrammes contain enough work of originality and quality to place him in the front rank of modern poets.

  Zone

  A la fin tu es las de ce monde ancien

  Bergère ô tour Eiffel le troupeau des ponts bêle ce matin

  Tu en as assez de vivre dans l’antiquité grecque et romaine

  Ici même les automobiles ont l’air d’être anciennes

  La religion seule est restée toute neuve la religion

  Est restée simple comme les hangars de Port-Aviation

  Seul en Europe tu n’es pas antique ô Christianisme

  L’Européen le plus moderne c’est vous Pape Pie X

  Et toi que les fenêtres observent la honte te retient

  D’entrer dans une église et de t’y confesser ce matin

  Tu lis les prospectus les catalogues les affiches qui chantent tout haut

  Zone

  In the end you are weary of this ancient world

  O Eiffel Tower shepherdess the flock of bridges bleats this morning

  You’ve had enough of living in Greek and Roman antiquity

  Here even the motorcars look antique Religion alone has remained brand new religion Has stayed simple like Port-Aviation’s hangars

  You alone in Europe are not ancient O Christianity The most modern European is you Pope Pius X And you whom the windows watch shame restrains you From entering a church and confessing there this morning You read handbills catalogues posters that sing aloud That’s what poetry is this morning and for prose there are the papers There are 25-centime instalments full of detective stories Portraits of great men and a thousand assorted titles

  Voilà la poésie ce matin et pour la prose il y a les journaux

  Il y a les livraisons à 25 centimes pleines d’aventures policières

  Portraits des grands hommes et mille titres divers

  J’ai vu ce matin une jolie rue dont j’ai oublié le nom

  Neuve et propre du soleil elle était le clairon

  Les directeurs les ouvriers et les belles sténo-dactylographes

  Du lundi matin au samedi soir quatre fois par jour y passent

  Le matin par trois fois la sirène y gémit

  Une cloche rageuse y aboie vers midi

  Les inscriptions des enseignes et des murailles

  Les plaques les avis à la façon des perroquets criaillent

  J’aime la grâce de cette rue industrielle

  Située à Paris entre la rue Aumont-Thiéville et l’avenue des Ternes

  I saw this morning a pretty street whose name I’ve forgotten Fresh and clean it was the bugle of the sunlight The directors the workers and the lovely shorthand typists Pass through it four times a day from Monday morning to Saturday evening In the morning the siren wails there three times A querulous bell yelps there towards midday The lettering on the signs and walls The nameplates the notices shriek like parrots I love the grace of this industrial street Located in Paris between the Rue Aumont-Thiéville and the Avenue des Ternes

  Voilà la jeune rue et tu n’es encore qu’un petit enfant

  Ta mère ne t’habille que de bleu et de blanc

  Tu es très pieux et avec le plus ancien de tes camarades René Dalize

  Vous n’aimez rien tant que les pompes de l’Église

  Il est neuf heures le gaz est baissé tout bleu vous sortez du

  dortoir en cachette

  Vous priez toute la nuit dans la chapelle du collège

  Tandis qu’éternelle et adorable profondeur améthyste

  Tourne à jamais la flamboyante gloire du Christ

  C’est le beau lys que tous nous cultivons

  C’est la torche aux cheveux roux que n’éteint pas le vent

  C’est le fils pâle et vermeil de la douloureuse mère

  C’est l’arbre toujours touffu de toutes les prières

  C’est la double potence de l’honneur et de l’éternité

  C’est l’étoile à six branches

  C’est Dieu qui meurt le vendredi et ressuscite le dimanche

  C’est le Christ qui monte au ciel mieux que les aviateurs

  Il détient le record du monde pour la hauteur

  There is the young street and you’re still just a little child Your mother dresses you only in blue and white You’re very pious and with your oldest friend René Dalize You love nothing so much as church ceremonies It’s nine o’clock the gas turned low is blue you slip secretly out of the dormitory You pray all night in the college chapel While the everlasting adorable amethyst depth Turns eternally the blazing glory of Christ It is the beautiful lily we all nurture It is the redhaired torch that the wind cannot blow out It is the pale and rose-red son of the grieving mother It is the ever leafy tree of all prayers It is the double cross potent of honour and eternity It is the six-pointed star It is God who dies on Friday and is restored to life on Sunday It is Christ rising heavenward outdoing the aviators He holds the world altitude record

  Pupille Christ de l’œil

  Vingtième pupille des siècles il sait y faire

  Et changé en oiseau ce siècle comme Jésus monte dans l’air

  Les diables dans les abîmes lèvent la tête pour le regarder

  Ils disent qu’il imite Simon Mage en Judée

  Ils crient s’il sait voler qu’on l’appelle voleur

  Les anges voltigent autour du joli voltigeur

  Icare Enoch Elie Apollonius de Thyane

  Flottent autour du premier aéroplane

  Ils s’écartent parfois pour laisser passer ceux que transporte la Sainte-Eucharistie

  Ces prêtres qui montent éternellement élevant l’hostie

  L’avion se pose enfin sans refermer les ailes

  Le ciel s’emplit alors de millions d’hirondelles

  A tire-d’aile viennent les corbeaux les faucons les hiboux

  D’Afrique arrivent les ibis les flamants les marabouts

  L’oiseau Roc célébré par les conteurs et les poètes

  Plane tenant dans les serres le crâne d’Adam la première tête

  L’aigle fond de l’horizon en poussant un grand cri

  Et d’Amérique vient le petit colibri

  De Chine sont venus les pihis longs et souples

  Christ pupil of the eye Twentieth pupil of the centuries it knows how And changed into a bird this century like Jesus soars into the air The devils in the chasms raise their heads to look at it They say it is imitating Simon Magus in Judea They shout if it knows how to fly then call it a fly-by-night The angels flutter around the pretty acrobat Icarus Enoch Elijah Apollonius of Tyana Hover around the first aeroplane Making way sometimes for those borne up by the Holy Eucharist to pass Those priests who rise eternally lifting up the host The aeroplane touches down at last without folding its wings The sky then is filled with millions of swallows Crows and falcons and owls come winging Ibis flamingos and marabou storks from Africa The Roc bird extolled by storytellers and poets Glides down holding in its talons Adam’s skull the first head The eagle swoops down from the horizon with a great cry And from America comes the little humming-bird From China have come the long and sinuous pihis Which have only one wing and fly in couples Now here is the dove the immaculate spirit Escorted by the lyre-bird and the ocellated peacock The phoenix that self-creating pyre Veils all for an instant with its glowing ashes The sirens leaving the perilous straits Arrive all three singing beautifully And all eagle phoenix and pihis of China Fraternize with the flying machine

  Qui n’ont qu’une seule aile et qui volent par couples

  Puis voici la colombe esprit immaculé

  Qu’escortent l’oiseau-lyre et le paon ocellé

  Le phénix ce bucher qui soi-même s’engendre

  Un instant voile tout de son ardente cendre

  Les sirènes laissant les périlleux détroits

  Arrivent en chantant bellement toutes trois

  Et tous aigle phénix et pihis de la Chine

  Fraternisent avec la volant
e machine

  Maintenant tu marches dans Paris tout seul parmi la foule

  Des troupeaux d’autobus mugissants près de toi roulent

  L’angoisse de l’amour te serre le gosier

  Comme si tu ne devais jamais plus être aimé

  Si tu vivais dans l’ancien temps tu entrerais dans un monastère

  Vous avez honte quand vous vous surprenez à dire une prière

  Tu te moques de toi et comme le feu de l’Enfer ton rire pétille

  Les étincelles de ton rire dorent le fond de ta vie

  C’est un tableau pendu dans un sombre musée

  Et quelquefois tu vas le regarder de près

  Aujourd’hui tu marches dans Paris les femmes sont ensanglantées

  C’était et je voudrais ne pas m’en souvenir c’était au déclin de la beauté

  Now you are walking in Paris all alone among the crowd Bellowing herds of buses roll past you The anguish of love tightens your throat As though you were never to be loved again If you lived in olden times you would enter a monastery You are ashamed when you catch yourself at prayer You laugh at yourself and like hellfire your laughter crackles The sparks of your laughter gild the depths of your life It is a picture hung in a gloomy gallery And sometimes you go and look at it close up

  Today you are walking in Paris the women are stained with blood It was and would I could forget it it was at the twilight of beauty

  Entourée de flammes ferventes Notre-Dame m’a regardé à Chartres

  Le sang de votre Sacré-Coeur m’a inondé à Montmartre

  Je suis malade d’ouïr les paroles bienheureuses

  L’amour dont je souffre est une maladie honteuse

  Et l’image qui te possède te fait survivre dans l’insomnie et dans l’angoisse

  C’est toujours près de toi cette image qui passe

  Maintenant tu es au bord de la Méditerranée