The Hermit

Poem by Guillaume Apollinaire Collection AlcoolsThemes MiscellaneousPeriod 20th century

To Félix Fénéon

An unshod hermit by a whitened skull
Cried I curse you martyrdoms and distresses
Too many temptations despite me caress me
Temptations of moon and of logomachies

Too many stars flee when I say my prayers
O head of the dead O old ivory Orbits Holes
Of eaten-away nostrils I am hungry My cries grow hoarse
So here for my fast is a piece of gruyère

O Lord scourge the clouds of the sunset
That offer you in the sky such pretty pink asses
And it is evening the flowers of day already close
And the mice in the shadow enchant the floor

Humans know so many games love and morra
Love game of navels or game of the great goose
Morra game of the illusory number of fingers
Bleeder make Lord that one day I may fall in love

I await the one who will hold out her slender fingers
How many white signs on the nails the lazinesses
The lies yet I await that she raise them
Her enamored hands before me the Unknown

Lord what have I done to you See I am one-horned
Yet despite its beautiful concupiscent fright
Like a cherished baby my sex is innocent
Of being anxious alone and standing like a boundary stone

Lord Christ is naked throw throw upon him
The seamless robe extinguish the ardors
In the well so many chimings of hours go to drown
When isochronous fall drops of rainwater

I have kept watch thirty nights under the oleanders
Did you sweat blood Christ in Gethsemane
Crucified answer Say no I deny it
For I have too much hoped in vain for hematidrosis

I listened on my knees to the beating
Of the heart the blood still rolled in its arteries
Which are old corals or which are clavicles
And my aorta was avaricious desperately

A drop fell Sweat And its color
Glow The blood so red and I laughed at the damned
Then finally I understood that I was bleeding from the nose
Because of the violent perfumes of my flowers
And I laughed at the old angel who did not come
With very indolent flight to hold out a beautiful chalice
I laughed at the gray wing and I remove my hairshirt
Woven of silky horsehairs by cruel canuts

By Jove Exulting in the vulvas of papesses
Of saintesses without tits I will go to the cities
And perhaps die there for my virginity
Among hands skins words and promises

Despite the blue west winds I stand divine
Like a moonbeam adored by the sea
In vain I begged all the aemeres saints
None has consecrated my sweet unleavened breads

And I walk I flee O night Lilith hoots
And cries in vain and I see great eyes
Open tragically O night I see your skies
Star calmly with splendid pills

A skeleton of an innocent queen is hanged
From a long thread of star in severe despair
At night the woods are black and green hope dies
When day dies with an unexpected rattle

And I walk I flee O day the emotion of dawn
Closed the fixed and gentle gaze of old rubies
Of owls and here is the gaze of ewes
And of sows with pink teats like lobes

Crows spread out like tildes make
A vain shadow on the poor fields of ripe rye
Not far from villages where cottages are impure
For having dead owls nailed to their ceiling

My long kilometers My plenary sadnesses
The skeletons of fingers ending the firs
Have led astray my road and my doll-like dreams
Often and I have slept on the ground of fir groves

At last O swooning evening At the end of my roads
The town appeared to me very grave to the sound of bells
And my lust dies now that I approach
Entering I blessed the crowds with both hands

City I laughed at your palaces like truffles
White on the dug-up soil of blue clearings
Now my desires go off one after another in single file
My pious migraine has donned its cucuphe
For all have come to confess their sins to me
And Lord I am a saint by the vow of the lovers
Zélotide and Lorie Louise and Diamante
Have said You can know O you the startled one

Hermit absolve our faults never venial
O you the pure and the contrite whom we love
Know our hearts know the games we love
And our kisses quintessential like honey

And I absolve the confessions purple as their blood
Of naked poetesses of fairies of formarines
No poor desire swells my breast
When I see in the evening couples embracing

For I want nothing more except to let close
My eyes couple weary in the panting orchard
Full of the pompous rattle of bleeding currant bushes
And of the holy cruelty of passionflowers

Guillaume Apollinaire

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