Love Without Hope
Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher
Swept off his tall hat to the Squire's own daughter,
So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly
Singing about her head, as she rode by.
I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right earlily and long,
Thou wert my joy in every spot,
My theme in every song.
And when I saw a stranger face
Where beauty held the claim,
I gave it like a secret grace
The being of thy name.
And all the charms of face or voice
Which I in others see
Are but the recollected choice
Of what I felt for thee.
Zacs: This isn't really one of Apollinaire's automatic poems, it's simply a poem relating to Annie, a woman he was mad about & who escaped from his over zealous attentions by going to America. He never went there himself because after surviving the WW1 (which he enjoyed!) he died like millions of others from the Spanish flu of 1918.
He's one of my all-time hero's, I think I've read every word he ever wrote which is in print, all of his poems & a lot of art criticism, among many things he invented was the word 'cubism'.
This translation by poet Oliver Bernard (Jeffrey's brother) I like better than last night's.
On the coast of Texas
Between Mobile and Galveston there is
A great big garden overgrown with roses
It also contains a villa
Which is one great rose
Often a woman walks
In the garden all alone
And when I pass on the lime-tree-bordered road
We look at each other
Since this woman belongs to the Mennonite sect
Her rose trees have no buds and her clothes no buttons
There are two missing from my jacket
This lady and I are almost of the same religion