Parisian War Song

Poem by Arthur Rimbaud Collection PoetryThemes WarPeriod 19th centuryPrint

Spring is obvious, for
From the heart of the green Properties,
The flight of Thiers and of Picard
Holds its splendors wide open!

O May! what delirious bare-arses!
Sèvres, Meudon, Bagneux, Asnières,
Just listen to the welcome ones
Sowing springtime things!

They have shako, saber and tam-tam,
Not the old candle box,
And yawls that have never, never…
Split the lake with reddened waters!

More than ever we go on a spree
When there arrive upon our dens
The yellow cabochons come crashing down
In peculiar dawns!
Thiers and Picard are Eroses,
Abductors of heliotropes;
With petroleum they make Corots:
Here come their tropes buzzing like beetles…

They are familiars of the Great Thing!…
And lying in the gladioli, Favre
Does his aqueduct blink,
And his pepper-laden sniffs!

The great city has hot pavement
Despite your showers of petroleum,
And decidedly, we must
Shake you in your role…

And the Rural folk who loll
In long crouchings,
Will hear branches breaking
Amid the red rustlings!

Arthur Rimbaud

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