The poem below by Guillaume Apollinaire (1880 –1918) is taken from Alcools, one of the first great modernist texts, published in 1913. A young Samuel Beckett, recognising the importance of this landmark collection, translated the first of its poems, entitled ‘Zone,’ which establishes, as its title suggests, a brave new, modern territory for writing in the 20th century.
‘Le Pont Mirabeau,’ however, is a rather more traditional lament to the passing of time and the fading of love. The bitter-sweet, melancholy tone was inspired by the poet’s troubled and ultimately doomed relationship with Marie Laurencin.
In addition to writing poetry, Apollinaire was a journalist and an art critic and is credited with having invented the terms ‘surrealism’ and ‘cubism’ He was a very close friend of Picasso and also of Gertrude Stein.
‘Le Pont Mirabeau’ has become one of the best-loved and most famous poems of French literature, and the first lines of the poem appear on a metal plaque on the Paris bridge in memory of this great poet.
The illustration is Étude pour le portrait de Guillaume Apollinaire, by Jean Metzinger, and it dates from 1911.
Under the Mirabeau Bridge
Under the Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine
Just like our loves
Must I recall
The joy that always followed pain
Night falls the bell tolls
The days fade but here I remain
Hand in hand let’s stand face to face
While beneath the bridge
Of our arms the waves
Of eternal longing flow languidly by
Night falls the bell tolls
The days fade but here I remain
Love fades away like the water that flows
Love fades away
How slow is life
And how aggressive is Hope
Night falls the bell tolls
The days fade but here I remain
Days pass the weeks pass too
Neither time gone by
Nor our loves will return
Under the Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine
Night falls the bell tolls
The days fade but here I remain
Guillaume Apollinaire (translation, John Lyons)
