Crows

Lord, when the open field is cold,

When in the battered villages

The endless angelus dies-

Above the dark and drooping world

Let the empty skies disclose

Your dear, delightful crows.

Armada dark with harsh cries,

Your nests are tossed by icy winds!

Along the banks of yellowed ponds,

On roads where crumbling crosses rise,

In cold and gray and mournful weather

Scatter, hover, dive together!

In flocks above the fields of France

Where yesterday's dead men lie,

Wheel across the winter sky;

Recall our black inheritance!

Let dutyin your cry be heard,

Mournful, black, uneasy bird.

Yet in that oak, you saints of god,

Swaying in the dying day,

Leave the whstling birds of May

For those who found, within that wood

From which they will not come again,

That every victory is vain.

Arthur Rimbaud (translated by PAUL SCHIMDT)