May

Poem by Guillaume Apollinaire Collection AlcoolsThemes Seasons, SpringPeriod 20th century

May the pretty May in a boat on the Rhine
Ladies were watching from the top of the mountain
You are so pretty but the boat drifts away
Who then made the riverside willows weep?

Now flowering orchards froze behind
The petals fallen from the cherry trees of May
Are the nails of the one I loved so much
The flowering petals are like her eyelids

On the path along the river slowly
A bear a monkey a dog led by gypsies
Followed a caravan drawn by a donkey
While faded away in the Rhenish vineyards
On a distant fife a regimental tune

May the pretty May has adorned the ruins
With ivy with Virginia creeper and with rosebushes
The wind of the Rhine shakes on the bank the osiers
And the chattering reeds and the bare flowers of the vines

Guillaume Apollinaire

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