The bread is rising France Paris An entire generation I address the poets who were there Friends Apollinaire is not dead You followed an empty hearse Apollinaire is a magus He's the one who was smiling in the silk of the flags at the windows He enjoyed throwing you flowers and wreaths While you walked behind the hearse Then he bought a little three-colored cockade I saw him that same night demonstrating on the boulevards He was astride the hood of an American truck and waving an enormous international flag spread out like an airplane LONG LIVE FRANCE The times change The years roll by like clouds The soldiers have gone back home To the houses Where they live And look a new generation is rising The dream of the BREASTS is coming true! Little French children, half English, half black, half Russian, a bit Belgian, Italian, Annamite, Czech One with a Canadian accent, another with Hindu eyes Teeth face bones joints lines smile bearing They all have something foreign about them and are still part of us Among them, Apollinaire, like that statue of the Niles, the father of the waters, stretched out with kids that flow all over him Between his feet, under his arms, in his beard They look like their father and go their own way And they all speak the language of Apollinaire | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A CRADLE SONG by PADRAIC COLUM SEA POPPIES by HILDA DOOLITTLE THE TWO VOICES by ALFRED TENNYSON WHEN DEATH HAS LOST THE KEY by KENNETH SLADE ALLING CRYING, 'THALASSUS!' by JOSEPH AUSLANDER AN EPITAPH ON SIR JOHN PROWDE, LIEUTENANT TO CHARLES MORGAN by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) THE RURAL PIPE by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON THE CANTERBURY TALES: THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE by GEOFFREY CHAUCER |