French Poetry

Table Of Contents

CONTENTS
 
Preface
 
Marie de France (fl. 1160–1215)
The Man and the Measuring Rod
Christine de Pisan (c. 1364–c. 1431)
Rondeau
Louise Labe (1420/22–66)
‘What good is it now, that you so perfectly’
‘As long as my eyes still have tears to cry’
‘I live, I die: I flare up & I drown’
Francois Villon (c. 1431–after 1463)
Ballad for the Dead Ladies
Marguerite de Navarre (1492–1549)
‘My time grows short’
Francois Rabelais (c. 1494–1553)
To the Reader
Clement Marot (1496–1544)
Rondeau of Antique Love
Song
Maurice Sceve (c. 1501–c. 1564)
From Delie:
‘The Eye, too afire with my youthful errors’
‘Rhone, & Saone shall sooner be disjoined’
‘Some delight in tales well told’
‘The less I see her, the more I hate her’
‘Alone with myself, she with her husband’
‘If you wonder why two elements’
Pernette du Guillet (c. 1520–45)
From Epigrammes:
‘If you wish not to prize so much this
ring’
‘No remedy I seek, in my defense’
Joachim du Bellay (c. 1522–60)
From The Regrets
‘O thou newcomer who seek’st Rome
in Rome’
‘Happy, who like Ulysses’
Pierre de Ronsard (1524–85)
From Cassandra:
‘Whoever wants to see how Love can tame’
‘To think one thought hundreds, hundreds of times’
‘Set free from reason and enslaved to passion’
‘He who made this world, fashioned faithfully’
‘Sweet Sleep, that brings to everything its peace’
Catherine des Roches (1542–87)
Quenouille, mon soucy, je vous promets et jure
Madeleine de l’Aubespine (1546–96)
‘Let the earth cease its turning, suddenly’
Marie de Cleves (1553–74)
Rondeau
Jean de Sponde (1557–95)
‘Imagine yourself in the heavens,floating high’
Jean-Baptiste Chassignet (1571–1635)
‘Seat yourself on the edge of a wavy river’
Madeleine de Scudery (1607–1701)
‘To tell the truth, Job’s destiny’
Jean de la Fontaine (1621–95)
The Hen That Laid the Golden Eggs
Antoinette des Houlieres (1638–94)
Reflections
Andre Chenier (1762–94)
From Hymne, a la France
Versailles
‘Comme un dernier rayon’
Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786–1859)
Memory
The Roses of Saadi
Apart
The Lost Secret
Victor Hugo (1802–85)
Moonlight
Night on the Ocean
‘At dawn tomorrow, when the plains grow bright’
Louise Colet (1810–76)
For My Daughter
Theophile Gautier (1811–72)
Farewell to Poetry
Art
Charles Baudelaire (1821–67)
To Each His Chimæra
The Swan
‘More memories than the fossils of the ages’
You’d Sleep with Anything
La Beaute
Anywhere out of the World
Intoxicate Yourself
Epilogue
To the Reader
Correspondences
The Mercenary Muse
Louise Michel (1830–1905)
Oath
Stephane Mallarme (1842–98)
‘To insert myself into your plot’
The Tomb of Edgar Poe
The Tomb of Charles Baudelaire
A Sigh
Sea-Wind
Jose-Maria De Heredia (1842–1905)
The Nemean Lion
Paul Verlaine (1844–96)
To Arthur Rimbaud
Nevermore
My Recurring Dream
Anguish
Green
Colloque sentimentale
Spleen
Tristan Corbiere (1845–75)
The Toad
Epitaph
Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91)
The Drunken Boat
Evening Prayer
Sonnet to an Asshole
From Une Saison en Enfer
After the Deluge
Departure
City
Charleville
Voyelles
On the Road
Jules LaForgue (1860–87)
The Dirge of the Poet’s Fetus
Legende
Paul Valery (1871–1945)
In the Sun
The Marine Cemetery
Poetry
The Steps
Gerard D’Houville (1875–1963)
Ashes
Leon-Paul Fargue (1876–1947)
A Fragrance of Night . . .
Anna de Noailles (1876–1933)
Offering to Pan
Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918)
‘Here’s the coffin’
‘I dreamt I was going’
The Mirabeau Bridge
Zone
Photograph  
The Night of April 1915
Calligram, 15 May 1915
Valery Larbaud (1881–1957)
The Old Station at Cahors
Catherine Pozzi (1882–1934)
Nyx
Jules Supervielle (1884–1960)
Rain & the Tyrants
Blaise Cendrars (1887–1961)
The Prose of the Trans-Siberian and of Little Jeanne of France
Pierre-Jean Jouve (1887–1976)
Lament for the Stag
Paul Eluard (1895–1952)
Lady Love
Giorgio de Chirico
Andre Breton (1896–1966)
Always for the First
Pierre Reverdy (1889–1966)
Heavier
That
. . . Is Ajar
Live Flesh
Tristan Tzara (1896–1963)
Proclamation without Pretension
Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
Post-Scriptum
Louis Aragon (1897–1982)
The Unoccupied Zone
The Lilacs and the Roses
Francis Ponge (1899–1988)
The End of Autumn
The Mollusc
Henri Michaux (1899–1984)
Slices of Knowledge
Benjamin Peret (1899–1959)
Little Song of the Maimed
Jacques Prevert (1900–77)
Pater Noster
Robert Denos (1900–45)
Epitaph
‘I have dreamed of you so long’
Last Poem
Marguerite Yourcenar (1903–87)
Poem for a Doll Bought in a Russian Bazaar
Jean Follain (1903–71)
Metaphysics
Absence
Eugene Guillevic (1907–97)
From Carnac
Leopold Sedar Senghor (1906–2001)
The Young Sun’s Greeting
Patrice de la Tour du Pin (1911–75)
First Concert on Earth (Borlonge)
Aime Cesaire (1913–2008)
song of the sea horse
link of the chain gang
Anne Hebert (1916–2000)
Rain
Yves Bonnefoy (1923–2016)
Imperfection Is the Summit
‘O flame’
Heather Dohollau (1925–2013)
Suite
Philippe Jaccottet (1925–)
The Voice
Interior
Venus Khoury-Ghata (1935–)
She Used to Throw Her Old Crockery
Henri Thomas (1913–93)
End of His Tether
Paul de Roux (1937–)
Day by Day
The Deep Street
Jacques Reda (1929–)
Prayer of a Passer-By
Vertigo
Michel Deguy (1930–)
‘Someone has been and is no longer’
Marie-Claire Bancquart (1932–)
Return of Ulysses
Hedi Kaddour (1946–)
Verlaine
Guy Goffette (1947–)
From A Speck of Gold in the Mud
False Lelian
Letter to the Unknown Woman across
the Street
Gilles Ortlieb (1953–)
‘Through the window, a small man in a tan scarf’
‘Snow in Thionville’
Valerie Rouzeau (1967–)
18 Lines towards What
From Cold Spring in Winter