Tu vois le feu du soir qui sort de sa coquille
Et tu vois la forêt enfouie dans sa fraîcheur
Tu vois la plaine nue aux flancs du ciel traînard
La neige haute comme la mer
Et la mer haute dans l'azur
Pierres parfaites et bois doux secours voilés
Tu vois les villes teintes de mélancolie
Dorée des trottoirs pleins d'éxcuses
Une place où la solitude a sa statue
Souriante et l'amour une seule maison
Tu vois les animeaux
Sosies malins sacrifiés l'un à l'autre
Frères immaculés aux ombres confondues
Dans un désert de sang
Tu vois un bel enfant quand il joue quand il rit
Il est bien plus petit
Que le petit oiseau du bout des branches
Tu vois un paysage aux saveurs d'huile et d'eau
D'où la roche est exclue où la terre abandonne
Sa verdure à l'été qui la couvre de fruits
Des femmes descendant de leur miroir ancien
T'apportent leur jeunesse et leur foi en la tienne
Et l'une sa clarté la voile qui t'entraîne
Te fait secrètement voir le monde sans toi.
Je nommerai ton front
J'en ferai un bûcher au sommet de tes sanglots
Je nommerai reflet la douleur qui te déchire
Comme une épée dans un rideau de soie
Je t'abattrai jardin secret
Plein de pavots et d'eau précieuse
Je te ligoterai de mon fouet
Tu n'avais dans ton cœur que lueurs souterraines
Tu n'auras plus dans tes prunelles que du sang
Je nommerai ta bouche et tes mains les dernières
Ta bouche écho détruit tes mains monnaie de plomb
Je briserai les clés rouillés qu'elles commandent
Si je dois m'apaiser profondément un jour
Si je dois oublier que je n'ai pas su vaincre
Qu'au moins tu aies connu la grandeur de ma haine.
1Eluard's title for the first poem was "Nous sommes" and for the second was "Vertueux solitaire"
You see the evening fire leaving its shell
and you see the forest buried in its coolness
you see the bare plain on the flanks of the loitering sky
the snow as high as the sea
and the sea high in the azure
perfect stones and sweet woods veiled sucours
you see the towns tinted with gilded
melancholy pavements full of excuses
a square in which solitude has its smiling
statue and love a single house
you see the animals
malicious doubles sacrificed the one to the other
immaculate brothers with confused shadows
in a desert of blood
you see a handsome child as he plays as he laughs
he is much smaller
than the little bird of the tip of the branches
you see a landscape with savours of oil and water
from which the rock is excluded where the earth abandons
its verdure to the summer which dresses her with fruit
women descending from their ancient mirror
bring you their youth and their faith in your own
and one her brightness veils her which engages you
makes you secretly see the world without you.
I shall nominate your brow
I shall make a stake of it at the summit of your sobs
I shall nominate reflection the pain which tears you
like a sword in a curtain of silk
I shall lay you to waste secret garden
full of poppies and precious water
I shall bind you with my whip
you had nothing but subterranean glows in your heart
you will no longer have anything but blood in the pupils of your eyes
I shall nominate your mouth and your hands the last
your mouth echo destroyed your hands coins of lead
I shall shatter the rusted keys that they command
if I am some day to appease myself profoundly
if I am to forget that I was never able to win
let you at least have known the magnitude of my hatred.
© translated by Christopher Goldsack
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