The Lilacs and the Roses

Louis Aragon

O months of flowering months of metamorphosis

May without a cloud and June lacerated

I will never forget the lilacs or the roses

Nor those spring’s folds have consecrated

I will never forget the tragic illusion

The procession cries crowd the sunlit clarity

The tanks laden with love the gifts from Belgium

The air that quivers the road this buzzing of bees

The rashness of victory that primes a quarrel

The red blood that a carmine kiss prefigures

And those about to die at the turrets, mortal,

Covered in lilacs by intoxicated watchers

I will never forget the gardens of France

Seeming the missals of vanished centuries

Nor the uneasy twilights enigma of silence

The roses all along the route of our journeys

The denial by flowers of the winds of panic

Of the soldiers passing by on wings of fear

Of the mad bicycles of the cannon, ironic,

Of the fake campers’ pitiable gear

Yet why does this tempest of images

Return me forever to one point of rest

At Saint Marthe A General Dark branches

A Norman villa the forest’s furthest edge

All’s quiet the enemy at rest in shadows

They say that Paris surrendered tonight

I’ll never forget the lilacs or the roses

Nor the twin loves we have lost outright

The first day’s bouquets lilacs lilacs from Flanders

Shadowy softness whose face death paints anew

And bouquets of the retreat roses tender

The colour of fire far roses of Anjou.

The Lilacs and the Roses (Les lilas et les roses)