At Nîmes

To Émile Léonard

Under the fairest of skies I enlisted

In seafaring Nice whose mere name is victorious

Lost amid 900 drivers anonymous

A carter am I in the new old Nîmes cartage

Love says Remain but the shelling on farther

Its target weds ceaselessly and most ardent

I’m waiting for Springtime to order us forth

We raw recruits to the glorious North

The 3 seated servants are nodding their snoots

Where their eyes gleam as bright as the spurs on my boots

A fine day for guarding the equestrian ground

I hear the artillery trumpets sound

I admire the jollity of this detachment

That’s set to join up at the front with our regiment

The territorial’s eating a salad

With anchovies talking about his wife’s malady

4 gun-layers true up the bubbles in levels

That move back and forth like the eyeballs of horses

The singer Girault sings for us after 9

A great opera aria you hearing it cry

I pat-pat the small gray artillery piece

Gray as the Seine and start thinking of Paris

But this pale wounded veteran in the canteen

Talks of shellbursts at night and their silvery sheen

I masticate slowly my ration of beef

I walk round from 5 until 9 in the evening

I saddle my horse and we wander about

I salute you afar o fair pink Magne Tower

Guillaume Apollinaire