Original Title: "Les poètes"
Text: Louis Aragon
Year: 1969
I do not know what possesses me
And pushes me to say out loud,
Nor for the pity nor for the help
Nor like one would confess one's faults,
What inhabits me and what obsesses me
What inhabits me and what obsesses me
The one who sings tortures himself
Which shouts in me, which animal
I kill or which creature,
In the name of good in the name of evil,
Only know those who remained silent.
Only know those who remained silent.
Machado sleeps in Collioure
Three steps were enough out of Spain
For the sky for him to become heavy
He sat in this countryside
And closed his eyes for ever
And closed his eyes for ever
Above the waters and the plains
Above the roofs of the hills
A plainchant rises at the top of the voice²
Is it toward the star Hölderlin?
Is it toward the star Verlaine?
Is it toward the star Verlaine?
Marlowe you need the tavern
Not for Faust but to die there
Between the killers surrounding you
with their daggers and their laughs
By the glimmer of a lantern.
By the glimmer of a lantern.
Stars, dusts of flames,
In august which fall on the ground
All the sky, this night, proclaims
The slaughter of the nightingales
But what does the universe know of the tragedy.
But what does the universe know of the tragedy.
The suffering gives birth to the dreams
Like a hive its bees
The man shouts where his iron gnaws him
And his wound fathers a sun
More beautiful than the ancient lies.
More beautiful than the ancient lies.
I do not know what possesses me
And pushes me to say out loud,
Nor for the pity nor for the help
Nor like one would confess one's faults,
What inhabits me and what obsesses me
What inhabits me and what obsesses me
²at full throat
All poems written by Louis Aragon
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