Poems in Time of War

A site with links & some information about Paul Eluard's work:
everypoet.com page

He was a French poet who lived through World War Two, publishing
his work clandestinely (like samizdat in another regime).
The composer Poulenc, also in occupied France, used some of these
in a work which was smuggled out & broadcast back into France
by the BBC. The most well-known one used in it is called "Liberte",
which maybe is a bit long to put here (Garden of Proserpine
or more), but is on this site along with the two below:
24 Poems translated from the original French to English:

Talking of Power and Love
Between all my torments between death and self
Between my despair and the reason for living
There is injustice and this evil of men
That I cannot accept there is my anger

There are the blood-coloured fighters of Spain
There are the sky-coloured fighters of Greece
The bread the blood the sky and the right to hope
For all the innocents who hate evil

The light is always close to dying
Life always ready to become earth
But spring is reborn that is never done with
A bud lifts from dark and the warmth settles

And the warmth will have the right of the selfish
Their atrophied senses will not resist
I hear the fire talk lightly of coolness
I hear a man speak what he has not known

You who were my flesh’s sensitive conscience
You I love forever you who made me
You will not tolerate oppression or injury
You’ll sing in dream of earthly happiness
You’ll dream of freedom and I’ll continue you

(This one in memory of my late beloved Christopher.)
Lovely And Lifelike
A face at the end of the day
A cradle in day’s dead leaves
A bouquet of naked rain
Every ray of sun hidden
Every fount of founts in the depths of the water
Every mirror of mirrors broken
A face in the scales of silence
A pebble among other pebbles
For the leaves last glimmers of day
A face like all the forgotten faces.

Labels: poetry

[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 1/18/2003 01:19:00 am