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To Ardengo Soffici.
Love has stirred my life as one stirs the earth in the zone of the
armies
I was reaching middle age when the war arrived
And on this day of August 1915 the hottest of the year
Well sheltered in the hypogeum that I dug myself
It is of you that I dream Italy mother of my thoughts
And already when von Kluck marched on Paris before the Marne
I evoked the sack of Rome by the Germans
The sack of Rome that have described
A Bonaparte the Spanish vicar Delicado and Aretino
I said to myself
Is it possible that the nation
Which is the mother of civilization
Watches without defending it the efforts made to destroy it
Then the times came the tombs opened
The ghosts of Slaves still trembling
Stood up crying DOWN WITH THE TUDESQUES
We the invisible army with dazzling cries
Softer than honey and simpler than a bit of earth
We turn our backs benignly to you Italy
But don’t worry we love you well
Italy mother who are also our daughter
We are here quietly and without sadness
And if despite the masks the sandbags the logs we fall
We know that another would take our place
And that the Armies will never perish
The months are not long nor the days nor the nights
It is the war that is long
Italy
You our mother and our daughter something like a sister
I have like you to comfort me
The quarter of pinard
That puts so much difference between us and the Boches
I also have like you the flight of companies of
partridges of the 75s
Like you I do not have that joyless pride of the Boches and I know how to laugh
I am not excessively sentimental like those
people without measure whom their actions exceed without
their knowing how to have fun
Our civilization has more finesse than the things they use
It is beyond the comfortable life
And of what is external in art and industry
Flowers are our children and not theirs
Even the fleur-de-lis that dies at the Vatican
The plain is infinite and the trenches are white
The planes buzz like bees
On the momentary roses of explosions
And the nights are adorned with garlands of dazzlements
Of bubbles of globules of unsuspected colors
We delight in everything even our sufferings
Our mood is charming ardor comes when needed
We are mocking for we know how to make allowances
And there is no more madness in the one who throws grenades than
in the one who plucks potatoes
You love a little more than we do gestures and sonorous words
You have at your disposal Etruscan spells the sense of heroic
majesty and courageous individual honor
We have the smile we guess what is not told to us we
are resourceful and even those who chicken out would on
occasion prove the spirit of sacrifice that is called bravery
And we smoke coarse tobacco with voluptuousness
It is night I am in my blockhouse lit by electric stick
I think of you land of the 2 volcanoes
I salute the memory of the sirens and the scyllas dead at the moment of Messina
I salute the equestrian Colleoni of Venice
I salute the red shirt
I send you my friendship Italy and prepare to applaud the high deeds of your rookies
Not because I imagine there will ever be more happiness or misfortune in this world
But because like you I love to think alone and the Boches would prevent me
But because the natural taste for perfection that we have one and
the other if they were left to do would quickly be replaced by I know not what
commodities that I have no use for
And above all because like you I know I want to choose and
that they would like to force us to no longer choose
A same destiny binds us in this case
It is not for the whole that I say it
But for each of you Italy
Do not limit yourself to taking the unredeemed lands
Put your destiny in the balance where ours is
The reflectors dart their gleams like snail eyes
And the shells as they fall are dogs that throw
earth with their paws after having relieved themselves
Our invisible army is a beautiful starry night
And each of our men is a marvelous star
O night o dazzling night
The dead are with our soldiers
The dead stand in the trenches
Or slip underground toward the Beloved
O Lille Saint-Quentin Laon Maubeuge Vouziers
We throw our cities like grenades
Our rivers are brandished like sabers
Our mountains charge like cavalry
We will take back the cities the rivers and the hills
From the Swiss frontier to the Batavian frontiers
Between you and us Italy
There are villages full of women
And near you awaits me the one I adore
O Brothers of Italy
Waves clouds deleterious
Metallic debris that rust everywhere
O brothers of Italy your plumes on your heads
Italy
Hear Louvain cry see Reims wring its arms
And that wounded soldier still standing Arras
And now let us sing those who are dead
Those who live
The officers the soldiers
The rifles Rosalie the cannon the rocket the propeller the shovel the horses
Let us sing the pale rings the helmets
Let us sing those who are dead
Let us sing the earth that yawns with boredom
Let us sing and laugh
For years
Italy
Hear the Boche donkey bray
Let us make war with whips
Made with the rays of the sun
Italy
Let us sing and laugh
For years
Guillaume Apollinaire
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-shell-of-the-color-of-the-moon-to-italy-guillaume-apollinaire/