-I go to get myselfready .=withtiutjoti=-for tonight's
Party: on the bridge, lanterns, clahces, ballads,
(I must accbmpany Miss Roseway who asks
- Very gently-after the families of §hipwrecked
Sailors!). Oh, that in a slow waltz, her back
tn my right arm, I might §weep her away without violence
Td
a
deserted isle where God would
r~tognize
his own ...
HOMEWARDS
to
M.
PI &rl.S
d~nry
At the Waterloo Hotel, I have had my snack,
Ahd, my bill paid,
t
steer myself toward the wharf.
Here
is the
Indus
(of
the Maritime Ffilight)
And the idiotic sorrow of "homewards."
- S()f1le French
officer~
rettltnifig' (rom Indochina
To !lpefid a leave of six mOfiths in Europe,
Comment on the boarding of young misses, sufficiently divine,
With whom I wllI certainly never flirt!
On the bridge my future traveling companions
Size me up . ..
Then we undergo a summary health inspection-
(This year the plague has caused considerable ravages!)
- Finally there is the bell for departure.
And so I bring home, piously wadded,
The flower of my Anglo-Saxon melancholy ..
Translated from the French by Kirby Olson
Editor's Note:
·Outwards~
and
·Homewards~
are translated from
Poems
by Henry
J.
M . Levet and printed with permission . Copyright
C
1943 Editions Gallimard.
