Best Anciens Poems
Rappelez-Vous
(English translation below original French)
Rappelez-vous les petits fils
Qui ecoutaient leurs grand-peres
Raconter des histoires d’ infanteries
Et de battailles de la premiere guerre.
Rappelez-vous des braves garcons
Qui s’imaginaient etre des soldats,
Qui plus tard servaient le drapeau American
En tant que veritables soldats.
Rappelez-vous des pauvres parents
Qui ont recu des telegrammes et des lettres,
Et qui apres ont place indefiniment
Des etoiles d’ors aux fenetres.
Rappelez-vous de chaque petite amie
Qui esperait un jour se marier
Avec son beau voisin-ami
Qui ne va jamais plus rentrer.
Rappelez-vous des nouvelles jeunes veuves,
Avec ses petits orphelins des peres,
Qui devaient subir les enormes epreuves
D’elever leurs enfants sans l’aide des peres.
N’oubliez pas les anciens jeunes garcons—
Les chanceux qui ont survecu
Et regardent souvent les horizons lointains
Cherchant leures ami-fantomes qui ne sont jamais revenues.
Remember
Remember the grandsons
Who listened to their grandfathers
Tell stories of infantries
And battles of the first war.
Remember brave boys
Who pretended to be soldiers
Who later served the American flag
As real soldiers
Remember the poor parents
Who received telegrams and letters
And who afterward indefinitely placed
Gold stars in their windows.
Remember each girlfriend
Who hoped to marry someday
Her handsome neighbor/friend
Who will never come back again.
Remember the new young widows,
With their little fatherless children
Who had to undergo the enormous ordeals
Of raising children without a father’s help.
Don’t forget the former young boys-
The lucky ones who survived,
And often look at the far horizons
For their phantom-friends that never returned.
When sun turned to gold
We sipped at our cold
Sauternes.
Perfectly controlled,
Hand in hand we strolled
Through ferns.
So Fortune’s wheel turns
And the flame that burns
So hot,
To ash it returns.
In the end one learns,
So what?
the form is Virelai Anciens
( 2 lines of five syllables followed by one line of 2. Repeated to make a 6 line stanza
with a rhyme scheme of AAB AAB, BBC BBC,)
but does not feature in poetrysoup lists