GIORDANO BRUNO
(Edwin Morgan)

innumerable worlds and worlds unmade,
half-made, the universe immense, displayed,
half-hidden, hidden, infinite, arrayed

with lights or lying back in hungry black
till knots unknot and darkest packs unpack
and pouring creatures run through every crack:

oh yes they do! why should we think it dead,
that vast ubiquitous flicker overhead?
The staff of life may not be only bread!

Why would the lord of life confine his writ
to this one ball of water, flesh, and grit?
You say it's special? Ah but transcending it

are specks we see, and specks we cannot see
but must imagine, in that immensity.
It is reason sets imagination free.

Configurations still unfigurable,
visions and visitations still invisible,
powers to come, still impermissible -

these give the slip to my incarceration.
Chains and a cell are but one suffering station.
Multiple worlds need multiple incarnation.

- But earthly powers were called for, and were shown.
There is a sequence when the torch is thrown:
smoke, screams, a little ash and bone.

I was puzzling over the meaning of the last verse, until I remembered that Bruno was burned at the stake for heresy. I'm sure that the first two lines are Bruno's. I'll try to confirm this.

I copied this charm from a book of Highland (Gaelic) verse in translation. This particular translation is by Alexander Carmichael and was reported as being from his "Carmina Gadelica", but I have yet to find it there.

KEPPOCH CHARM STONE INVOCATION

Let me dip thee in the water,
Thou yellow, beautiful gem of power!
In water of purest wave,
Which pure was kept by Bridget.

In the name of the Apostles twelve,
In the name of Mary, Virgin of virtues,
And in the name of the High Trinity,
And all the shining angels,
A blessing on the gem,
A blessing on the water, and
A healing of bodily ailments to each suffering creature.

This charm is of interest to me because the same practice of charming away illness with a stone is reported in the kirk session records in the parish where my family was living at the time. I quote the records here, spelling unchanged, emphasis added.

“John Young, in the Valleyfield, delated for charming, summoned, called, and appearing, interrogated as to his charming, declared as follows—viz., that being some time ago called to cure a certain sick person, he used these words: ‘ Little thing hath wronged thee, nothing can mend thee but Father, Son, and Holie Ghost, all three, and our sweet Lady. In etemitie let never wax, but away to the waine, as the dew goes of yeard and stane. I seek help to this distressed person in thy name.’ He likewise acknowledged that he used the same words in curing of a woman in the Blaire, who was for years thereafter weell; and that by the same words he cured Robert Bruce in the Shyres miln,—and the disease these persons had, he said, was a splen, which he siemed to the session to understand as of a disease put upon them through envy and splen. And being interrogat if he used any gestures or postures whiles he was pronouncing these words, he could not deny but that first he rubbed his own hand upon a bare stone, and rubbed the breast, stroaking it 3 times, of the person affected, and siemed to say that he prescribed the use of some herbs to the patient. The session did unanimously conclude him guilty of charming; whereupon being again called, the minister did endeavor to hold out the evill of his way, telling him that his cures were not effected without the help of the devill, and not only to forbear the same in tyme comming, but to mourn before God, and to seek mercie through Christ for using of the divel's prescriptions, and that the witches and warlocks used God's words and made mention of the name of God and Christ in theire services; and he being removed, the session did think fit to advise with the presbetrie how to carrie with him.”
28 August 1693.

(from David Beveridge, "Culross and Tulliallan", vol.ii, p.19)

Some other examples of curing stones and associations (?) with Celtic saints.

Alexander the Great, the plonky who conquered the world.

WINE
(Raymond Carver)

Reading a life of Alexander the Great, Alexander
whose rough father, Philip, hired Aristotle to tutor
the young scion and warrior, to put some polish
on his smooth shoulders. Alexander who, later
on the campaign trail into Persia, carried a copy of
The Iliad in a velvet-lined box, he loved that book so
much. He loved to fight and drink, too.
I came to that place in the life where Alexander, after
a long night of carousing, a wine-drunk (the worst kind of drunk–
hangovers you don't forget), threw the first brand
to start a fire that burned Persepolis, capital of the Persian Empire
(ancient even in Alexander's day).
Razed it right to the ground. Later, of course,
next morning–maybe even while the fire roared–he was
remorseful. But nothing like the remorse felt
the next evening when, during a disagreement that turned ugly
and, on Alexander's part, overbearing, his face flushed
from too many bowls of uncut wine, Alexander rose drunkenly to his feet,
grabbed a spear and drove it through the breast
of his friend, Cletus, who'd saved his life at Granicus.
For three days Alexander mourned. Wept. Refused food. "Refused
to see to his bodily needs." He even promised
to give up wine forever.
(I've heard such promises and the lamentations that go with them.)
Needless to say, life for the army came to a full stop
as Alexander gave himself over to his grief.
But at the end of those three days, the fearsome heat
beginning to take its toll on the body of his dead friend,
Alexander was persuaded to take action. Pulling himself together
and leaving his tent, he took out his copy of Homer, untied it,
began to turn the pages. Finally he gave orders that the funeral
rites described for Patroklos be followed to the letter:
he wanted Cletus to have the biggest possible send-off.
And when the pyre was burning and the bowls of wine were
passed his way during the ceremony? Of course, what do you
think? Alexander drank his fill and passed
out. He had to be carried to his tent. He had to be lifted, to be put
into his bed.

"Carol Ann Dunn was born and raised in Liverpool but has lived in Leeds for over 30 years, working as a teacher and trainer across West Yorkshire. A singer of both traditional and choral music, she began writing poetry and ballads on a course at Maddy Prior's Stones Barn and does so on subjects that are important to her, such as this one."

All the above and the following lifted from the Morning Star.

THEY'LL NEVER WALK ALONE
(Carol Ann Dunn)

The fans had come to Sheffield
To see their idols play,
Their chants were loud but happy
On that fatal April day.

The fans were all excited,
convinced their team would win;
Police had packed them tighter
And ever tighter in.

The crush grew suffocating
And fans soon realised
A tragedy was happening
Before their very eyes.

Though pressed against the railings
Like cattle in a pound,
Some fans were helping others
Climb out to safer ground;

Though they could hardly breathe,
They hoisted children high,
Passed them along to safety
Then stayed behind to die.

Police would blame them later:
‘The fans were drunk’ they lied;
That rag the Sun abused as scum
The innocent who died.

The inquest (well, the first one)
Claimed ‘Accidental Death’;
An insult on an injury
That took away our breath.

Now Merseyside united,
The red side with the blue;
As purple as a bruise,
One colour from the two.

Through all their bruising battles
They were bloodied but unbowed;
They brought us a new unity,
They did our city proud;

They showed us our true colours
These loved ones of the dead,
To find some kind of peace of mind,
To help put pain to bed.

Will we walk with these families,
Now that the end’s in sight
For justice for the ninety six?
Will we? Too fucking right.

SULTAN
(Nizar Qabbani)

If I were promised safety,
if I could meet the Sultan
I would say to him: O my lord the Sultan!
my cloak has been torn by your ravenous dogs,
your spies are following me all the time.
Their eyes
their noses
their feet are chasing me
like destiny, like fate
They interrogate my wife
and write down all the names of my friends.
O Sultan!
Because I dare to approach your deaf walls,
because I tried to reveal my sadness and
tribulation,
I was beaten with my shoes.
O my lord the Sultan!
you have lost the war twice
because half our people
has no tongue.

I lifted this from Chris H's blog, as I threatened to do. The search to identify the author goes on. My old grandad, Edward McGinn, was one of these men, usually getting passed over because he refused to buy a day's work with a "backhander". Many of the stevedores who hired the dockers had a pub or a shebeen where men had to go for a start, and were expected to cough up for a pint while they waited. At the end of the working day it was back to the boozer to collect the day's earnings, and, of course, sup a couple of pints to "slake the dust".
This poem is reckoned to be from c.1910.

A DAY'S WORK AT THE DOCKS
(George Milligan)

Before the great world’s noises break
the stillness overhead,
For toiling life begins the strife –
The day’s grim fight for bread.
Where Mersey’s mighty greyhounds speak
The wealth or England’s stocks,
Stand, mute and meek, the men that seek
A Day’s Work at the Docks.

Behold them now – a motley throng,
Men drawn from every grade:
Pale, florid, puny – weak and strong,
All by one impulse swayed.
One impulse – bread; one impulse – work!
How hope at each heart knocks
As mute and meek, they crush to seek
A day’s work at the docks.

‘Stand back! Stand back!’ A hoarse voice storms,
With curses muttered lower,
The straining ring of human forms
But closes in the more.
Well fed, you foremen scarce can know
How want the judgement mocks,
When, mute and meek, men eager seek
A day’s work at the docks.

Idris Davies' poetry has featured onthese pages before, and, no doubt, will again.
Gwalia means 'Wales', Gwalia Deserta is the name of a collection of Davies' poems.

GWALIA DESERTA VIII
(Idris Davies)

Do you remember 1926? That summer of soups and speeches,
The sunlight on the idle wheels and the deserted crossings,
And the laughter and the cursing in the moonlight streets?
Do you remember 1926? The slogans and the penny concerts,
The jazz-bands and the moorland picnics,
And the slanderous tongues of famous cities?
Do you remember 1926? The great dream and the swift disaster,
The fanatic and the traitor, and more than all,
The bravery of the simple, faithful folk?
‘Ay, ay, we remember 1926,’ said Dai and Shinkin,
As they stood on the kerb in Charing Cross Road,
“And we shall remember 1926 until our blood is dry.”

A friend posted this poem and it inspired me to initiate a poetry season. The poem was published in 1921.
Does Siegfried Sassoon need an introduction? Suffice to say that he was from a privileged background, but was radicalised by his experiences in World War 1. What he witnessed confirmed the German general's estimation of the British Army as "lions led by donkeys".


THE CASE FOR THE MINERS
Siegfried Sassoon

Something goes wrong with my synthetic brain
When I defend the Strikers and explain
My reasons for not blackguarding the Miners.
" What do you know? " exclaim my fellow-diners
(Peeling their plovers' eggs or lifting glasses
Of mellowed Chateau Rentier from the table),
" What do you know about the working classes?"

I strive to hold my own; but I'm unable
To state the case succinctly. Indistinctly
I mumble about World-Emancipation,
Standards of Living, Nationalization
Of Industry; until they get me tangled
In superficial details; goad me on
To unconvincing vagueness. When we've wrangled
From soup to savoury, my temper's gone.

" Why should a miner earn six pounds a week?
Leisure! They'd only spend it in a bar!
Standard of life! You'll never teach them Greek,
Or make them more contented than they are!"
That's how my port-flushed friends discuss the Strike.
And that's the reason why I shout and splutter.
And that's the reason why I'd almost like
To see them hawking matches in the gutter.

I just learned of the death, on Saturday at the age of 87, of Philip Levine, who was Poet Laureate of the USA in 2011 and 2012.
Now I make a confession; I had never heard of Philip Levine, and I wasn't aware that the USA appointed poets to the office of laureate. Reading about the gent I learn that he was "a champion of the working class". That'll do for me. I looked on line for his verse, and the title of this one aroused my curiosity. The named poets hardly feature in the poem, which is really about one Arthur Lieberman, cousin of Levine.

ON THE MEETING OF GARCIA LORCA AND HART CRANE
(Philip Levine)

Brooklyn, 1929. Of course Crane's
been drinking and has no idea who
this curious Andalusian is, unable
even to speak the language of poetry.
The young man who brought them
together knows both Spanish and English,
but he has a headache from jumping
back and forth from one language
to another. For a moment's relief
he goes to the window to look
down on the East River, darkening
below as the early night comes on.
Something flashes across his sight,
a double vision of such horror
he has to slap both his hands across
his mouth to keep from screaming.
Let's not be frivolous, let's
not pretend the two poets gave
each other wisdom or love or
even a good time, let's not
invent a dialogue of such eloquence
that even the ants in your own
house won't forget it. The two
greatest poetic geniuses alive
meet, and what happens? A vision
comes to an ordinary man staring
at a filthy river. Have you ever
had a vision? Have you ever shaken
your head to pieces and jerked back
at the image of your young son
falling through open space, not
from the stern of a ship bound
from Vera Cruz to New York but from
the roof of the building he works on?
have you risen from bed to pace
until dawn to beg a merciless god
to take these pictures away? Oh, yes,
let's bless the imagination. It gives
us the myths we live by. Let's bless
the visionary power of the human--
the only animal that's got it--,
bless the exact image of your father
dead and mine dead, bless the images
that stalk the corners of our sight
and will not let go. The young man
was my cousin, Arthur Lieberman,
then a language student at Columbia,
who told me all this before he died
quietly in his sleep in 1983
in a hotel in Perugia. A good man,
Arthur, he survived graduate school,
later came home to Detroit and sold
pianos right through the Depression.
He loaned my brother a used one
to compose his hideous songs on,
which Arthur thought were genius.
What an imagination Arthur had!

Amiri Baraka, formerly Leroi Jones; under which identity he wrote this I can't say at the moment, so I'll give him his chosen name.

MONDAY IN B-FLAT
(Amiri Baraka)

I can pray
all day
& God
wont come.

But if I call
911
The Devil
Be here

in a minute!

Have I remarked on it before? I hate that word 'cool', so annoyingly middle class.

"Have you got a loyalty card?"
"No, and I don't want one, thank you."
"That's cool."
(Is it really? Is that what passes for cool in your strange world?)

COOL/HIP
(Adrian Mitchell)

cool is a pose
hip is a gift
cool is a mask
hip is perfect pitch
cool is closed twenty-two hours a day
hip is open all round the clock
cool is a suit of armour made of ice
hip strolls naked on the bay of the dock
cool pretends it doesn't go to an analyst
hip is Just William at Prince Charming's Ball
cool is the super-sarcastic panellist
hip's the green lizard on the workhouse wall
cool is a sniper on the hills
keeping going on those mean green pills
hip is a joke
weightless as smoke
or Hamlet stalking
in his Spiderman cloak

Albert Young was an IWW member from Glasgow who was active in the North London branch of the union. He was too old to be conscripted into the armed forces during World War 1, but the poem suggests that, like many Fellow Wobs, he would have resisted conscription. "The Deserter" was published in the Daily Herald in 1915, and later in a collection of Albert's verse entitled "The Red Dawn".

THE DESERTER
(Albert Young)

I refuse to murder or maim this man, my brother,
Or soil my soul in the smoke of war’s red smother.
I refuse to kindle the flame that shall burn this city,
So my heart be murder-stained and dead to pity.

I refuse to obey your command. I have no duty
Other than love of Life and love of Beauty.
Tho’ you riddle my body with lead still I’ll be grateful.
But I’m gone – and you’re left behind, pursuing and hateful.

I fly with the wings of the wind and a hope surprising,
And reach a haven at last, as the sun is rising.
And here till the night-shades fall I sleep in gladness,
Then up, on the dark, rough road, to my home of sadness.

Hard on my track snarl the hounds of Hell’s own breeding;
But again I’m gone and roadway’s ‘neath me speeding.
Soon my garb of shame’s sunk to the depths of the river,
And dressed in the clothes of a man I offer thanks to the giver.

For I will not murder or maim this man, my brother,
Or sink my soul in the slime of war’s red smother.
I’ll get away if I can and in more peaceful regions
I’ll live and love and forget War and its murdering smother.

Joe Corrie's a regular visitor to my poetry seasons. Here he is again.

MINERS' WIVES
(Joe Corrie)

We have borne good sons to broken men
Nurtured them on our hungry breast
And given them to our masters when
Their day of life was at its best

We have dried their clammy clothes by the fire
Solaced them, tended them, cheered them well
Watched the wheels raising them from the mire
Watched the wheels lowering them to Hell

We have prayed for them in a Godless way
(We never could fathom the ways of God)
We have sung with them on their wedding day
Knowing the journey and the road

We have stood through the naked night to watch
The silent wheels that raised the dead
We have gone before to raise the latch
And lay the pillow beneath their head

We have done all this for our masters' sake
Did it in rags and did not mind
What more do they want? what more can they take?
Unless our eyes and leave us blind

A verse from Apollinaire's "Bestiaire" that I like, with an English language version by the great Edwin Morgan.

LE CHAT

Je souhaite dans ma maison:
Une femme ayant sa raison,
Un chat passant parmi les livres,
Des amis en toute saison
Sans lesquels je ne peux pas vivre.

THE CAT

Mine be the house where you would find:
A woman in her right mind,
A cat to walk among the books,
And friends about at any time –
I bear no fruit without these roots.

Time, I think, for a poetry season.
Idris Davies has appeared here before, and no doubt will do so again.


A VICTORIAN PORTRAIT
(Idris Davies)

You stood behind your Bible
And thundered lie on lie,
And your roaring shook your beard
And the brow above your eye.

There was squalor all around you
And disaster far ahead,
And you roared the fall of Adam
To the dying and the dead.

You built your slums, and fastened
Your hand upon your heart
And warned the drab illiterate
Against all useless art.

And you died upon the Sabbath
In bitterness and gloom,
And your lies were all repeated
Above your gaudy tomb.

I've been hankering after a poetry season and thought one was due. However, it turns out that it's only six months since the last one. I'll just have to give myself a booster shot, i.e., a single poem. I turn to the old master Sorley MacLean.

THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF IRELAND

In these evil days
when the old wound of Ulster is a disease
suppurating in the heart of Europe
and in the heart of every Gael
who knows that he is a Gael,
I have done nothing but see
in the National Museum of Ireland
the rusty red spot of blood,
rather dirty, on the shirt
that was once on the hero
who is dearest to me of all
who stood against bullet or bayonet,
or tanks or cavalry,
or the bursting of frightful bombs:
the shirt that was on Connolly
in the General Post Office of Ireland
while he was preparing the sacrifice
that put himself upon a chair
that is holier than the Lia Fail
that is on the Hill of Tara in Ireland.

The great hero is still
sitting on the chair
fighting the battle in the Post Office
and cleaning streets in Edinburgh.

ARD-MHUSAEUM NA H-EIREAN

Anns na laithean dona seo
is seann leòn Uladh 'na ghaoid
lionnrachaidh 'n cridhe na h-Eòrpa
agus an cridhe gach Gàidheil
dh'an aithne gur h-e th'ann an Gàidheal,
chad'rinn mise ach gum facas
ann an Ard Mhusaeum na h-Eireann
spot mheirgeach ruadh na fala
's I caran salach air an léinidh
a bha aon uair air a' churaidh
as docha leamsa dhuibh uile
a sheas ri peileir no ri béigneid
no ri tancan no ri eachraidh
no ri spreaghadh nam bom éitigh;
an léine bh'air O Conghaile
ann an Ard Phost-Oifis Eirinn
's e'g ullachadh na h-Iobairt
a chuir suas e fhéin air séithir
an naoimhe na'n Lia Fàil
th'air Cnoc na Teamhrach an Eirinn.

Tha an curaidh mór fhathast
'na shuidhe air an tséithir
ag cur a' chatha 'sa Phost-Oifis
's ag glanadh shràidean an Dun-Eideann.

(1971, English translation by the author)

Untitled poem by Ms. Margaret Rooney -

A woman in here just shouted on her son.
Jay-Z.
That's his name.
I thought I misheard, but she shouted again.
Still Jay-Z.
She's talking to him.
Still Jay-Z.
This wean is called Jay-Z.
She called her wean Jay-Z.
Even Jay-Z's maw didn't do that.

The meaning of 'wean' should be obvious from the context - right?

Addendum: I've been informed by the author that this is not a poem. Well it reads like a poem to me.

Here's a literal translation of a poem called I nGarrán na Bhile (In Garnavilla), by one 'Pleasant' Ned Lysaght. I don't know the author of the original, I've seen a name, but will settle for 'Anon.' until convinced. The point is that a literal translation can stand against a fancy reworking.

IN GARNAVILLA
(Edward Lysaght)

Have you ever been in Garnavilla,
Or have you seen in Garnavilla
The gay young girl of the golden locks,
My sweetheart, Kate of Garnavilla?

She's whiter than the swan on the pool,
Or the snow on the crest of the bending bow;
Her kiss is sweeter than the dew on the rose,
My sweetheart, Kate of Garnavilla.

Her song is more tuneful than the blackbird or thrush,
Or the nightingale on the willow bough;
Like a ship in sail on the mistless wave
I see my sweet in Garnavilla.

The original with another English version is here.

Having time for little else at the moment I post a poem by Austin Clarke about some famous Irishwomen.

THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN

Over the hills the loose clouds rambled
From rock to gully where goat or ram
Might shelter. Below, the battering-ram
Broke in more cottages. Hope was gone
Until the legendary Maud Gonne,
for whom a poet lingered, sighed,
Drove out of mist upon a side-car,
Led back the homeless to broken fence,
Potato plot, their one defence,
And there, despite the threat of Peelers,
With risky shovel, barrow, peeling
Their coats off, eager young men
Jumped over bog-drain, stone to mend or
Restore the walls of clay; the police
Taking down names without a lease.
O she confronted the evictors
In Donegal, our victory.
When she was old and I was quickened
By syllables, I met her. Quickens
Stirred leafily in Glenmalure
Where story of Tudor battle had lured me.
I looked with wonder at the sheen
Of her golden eyes as though the Sidhe
Had sent a flame-woman up from ground
Where danger went, carbines were grounded.

Old now, by luck, I try to count
Those years. I never saw the Countess
Markievicz in her green uniform,
Cock-feathered slouched hat, her Fianna form
Fours. Form the railings of Dublin slums,
On the ricketty stairs the ragged slumped
At night. She knew what their poverty meant
In dirty laneway, tenement,
And fought for new conditions, welfare
When all was cruel, all unfair.
With speeches, raging as strong liquor,
Our big employers, bad Catholics,
Incited by Martin Murphy, waged
War on the poor and unwaged them.
Hundreds of earners were batoned, benighted,
When power and capital united.
Soon Connolly founded the Citizen Army
And taught the workers to drill, to arm.
Half-starving children were brought by ship
To Liverpool from lock-out, hardship.
"innocent souls are seized by kidnappers,
And proselytisers. Send back our kids!"
Religion guffed.
The Countess colled
With death at sandbags in the College
Of Surgeons. How many did she shoot
When she kicked off her satin shoes?

Women rose out after the Rebellion
When smoke of buildings hid the churchbells,
Helena Maloney, Louie Bennett
Unioned the women workers bent
At sewing machines in the by-rooms
Of Dublin, with little money to buy
A meal, dress-makers, milliners,
Tired hands in factories.

Mill-girls
In Lancashire were organized,
Employers forced to recognize them:
This was the cause of Eva Gore-Booth,
Who spoke on platform, at polling-booth
In the campaign for Women's Suffrage,
That put our double-beds in a rage,
Disturbed the candle-lighted tonsure.
Here Mrs. Sheehy-Skeffington
And other marched. On a May day
In the Phoenix Park, I watched, amazed,
A lovely woman speak in public
While crowding fellows from office, public
House, jeered. I heard that sweet voice ring
And saw the gleam of wedding ring
As she denounced political craft,
Tall, proud as Mary Wollenstonecraft.
Still discontented, our country prays
To private enterprise. Few praise
Now Dr. Kathleen Lynn, who founded
A hospital for sick babies, foundlings,
Saved them with lay hands. How could we
Look down on infants, prattling, cooing,
When wealth had emptied so many cradles?
Better than ours, her simple Credo.

Women, who cast off all we want,
Are now despised, their names unwanted,
For patriots in party statement
And act make worse our Ill-fare State.
The soul is profit. Money claims us.
Heroes are valuable clay.

I've placed my partiality to the work of Kad Achouri on record before. I particularly like his treatment of poems. This track is his version of Rimbaud's "Le dormeur du val". I also like his treatment of Boris Vian's "L'Évadé", which he calls "Le temps de vivre". His rap version of Paul Éluard's "Liberté" is a firm favourite of mine, though rap languishes near the bottom of my list of musical preferences.

LE DORMEUR DU VAL

C'est un trou de verdure où chante une rivière,
Accrochant follement aux herbes des haillons
D'argent ; où le soleil, de la montagne fière,
Luit : c'est un petit val qui mousse de rayons.

Un soldat jeune, bouche ouverte, tête nue,
Et la nuque baignant dans le frais cresson bleu,
Dort ; il est étendu dans l'herbe, sous la nue,
Pâle dans son lit vert où la lumière pleut.

Les pieds dans les glaïeuls, il dort. Souriant comme
Sourirait un enfant malade, il fait un somme :
Nature, berce-le chaudement : il a froid.

Les parfums ne font pas frissonner sa narine ;
Il dort dans le soleil, la main sur sa poitrine,
Tranquille. Il a deux trous rouges au côté droit.


THE SLEEPER IN THE VALLEY

It is a green hollow where a stream gurgles,
Crazily catching silver rags of itself on the grasses;
Where the sun shines from the proud mountain:
It is a little valley bubbling over with light.

A young soldier, open-mouthed, bare-headed,
With the nape of his neck bathed in cool blue cresses,
Sleeps; he is stretched out on the grass, under the sky,
Pale on his green bed where the light falls like rain.

His feet in the yellow flags, he lies sleeping. Smiling as
A sick child might smile, he is having a nap:
Cradle him warmly, Nature: he is cold.

No odour makes his nostrils quiver;
He sleeps in the sun, his hand on his breast
At peace. There are two red holes in his right side.

(English version, Oliver Bernard)