Song of honor
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The Poet I recall this
evening the ancient Indian play The
Infant’s Chariot a sneakthief comes that way Who thinks
before he makes a hole within the wall What shape
for the cutting would be suitable To insure
that beauty should not lose its rights Even during a
crime And we’d have by my lights At the
instant of dying all we poets we men A care of the
same order for the war we’re in But here as anywhere
I know well that beauty Is the
greater part of the time just simplicity And in a
trench I’ve seen them who though dead how many With an
inclined head were still up standing Against the
parapet leaning over simply Four I saw
one time hit by one shell only They stayed a
very long while dead thus and quite eager With the
inclined aspect of four Towers of Pisa Ten days now
at the back of a gully too narrow a fold In the many
cave-ins and the mud and the cold Amid the
suffering flesh and the rot of a sewer Anxiously
we’re guarding the road that goes to Tahure I’ve
more than octopi’s three hearts to suffer with Your hearts
are all in me I feel every suture Oh my
soldiers suffering oh wounded unto death This night is
so fair where bullets cooing go A river made
of shells above our heads doth flow At times a
rocket comes to light up the night A very flower
opening and passing out of sight The earth
makes heavy moan and like the tides that rove The flood
comes singing up within my chalky cove Dwelling place
of insomnia house of who knows which Among Alarum
Death and what we call the Itch The Trench Oh young
people I offer myself to you wifely My love is
very strong I love even to death Crouch deep
in the ground I keep watch jealously And my body in
all is one long kiss with teeth The Bullets From our
hives of steel let us go fast-running Bees all of
the plunder which bleeding coats with honey The gentle
rays of a day that ever is new-sunning Comes from
that exquisite garden humanity With flowers
of intelligence in perfume of beauty The Poet Christ has
never come but in vain among men If rivers
full of blood divide the kingdoms then And even Love
is known for all its cruelty That’s
why one must at least give thought to Beauty The only
thing down here that never goeth wrong It bears a
hundred names in the Frenchman’s tongue Grace Virtue
Courage Honor and that is naught But one and
the same Beauty France Poet honor that Care for sake
of Beauty not care for sake of Glory Nevertheless Perfection
isn’t that Victory The Poet Oh poets of
times to come oh all you singers I sing the
loveliness of each of all our dolors I have
grasped a few lines but you’ll be more efficacious To endow with
sublime meaning such deeds as are glorious And set down
the greatness of these passings pious One who
relaxes his body by throwing out grenades Another who
loves to shoot nourishes fusillades Another with
dangling arms carries pails of wine And the
soldier-priest speaks the secret divine I interpret for
all the sweetness of three notes Sent from an
oriole cannon when you sob in your throats Who then will
ever know how many times I’ve wept All my
generation over your sacred death Take my
verses oh France Future Multitude Sing you what
I sing a pure song the prelude Of sacred
songs to which the beauty of our time Shall inspire
you all more pure more dazzling fine Than these I
strive withal to modulate this evening In honor of
Honor itself the loveliness of Duty |
Guillaume Apollinaire