Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BALLAD OF FLORENTIN, by GEORGES DUHAMEL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BALLAD OF FLORENTIN, by                    
First Line: He fought the fight for twenty days
Last Line: And silently, not to wake her up.
Subject(s): Death; Fights; Mothers & Sons; Dead, The


He fought the fight for twenty days
And his mother watched by his side.

He fought the fight, Florentin Prunier,
For his mother would not have him die.

As soon as she heard he was wounded
She came, from far off in the province.

She crossed the thundering countryside
Where the immense army swarmed in the mud.

Her face was hard under tight-drawn hair;
She feared no person and no thing.

She brought a basket, with a dozen apples,
And fresh butter in a little pot.

All day long she kept her seat
Beside the cot where Florentin lay dying.

She came at the hour for making the fire
And she stayed until Florentin grew delirious.

She stepped out a while when they said "Go!"
While they were dressing his torn bosom.

She would have stayed had it helped to stay:
She was a woman who could bear her son's torment.

Did she not have to hear his cries
While she waited, ankle-deep in water?

She was like a watch-dog at the bedside,
No one saw her go to eat or drink.

Florentin also ate no more:
The butter turned in its little pot.

Her hands, twisted like gnarled roots,
Clasped her son's wizened hand.

Stubbornly she gazed and gazed upon
The white face where sweat was pouring.

She saw the twisted cords of the neck,
Where his breath caught while passing.

She saw all this with a fevered eye,
Dry and hard as the breaking of flint.

She watched without ever complaining:
That was her way of being a mother.

He said, "There's the cough that saps me."
She answered, "You know I am here!"

He said, "I think that I am going."
But she answered, "No, I won't have it, my boy!"

He fought the fight for twenty days
And his mother watched by his side,

Like an expert swimmer moving in the sea,
Holding his weak child on the waters.

Then, one morning, as she was overweary
With her twenty nights passed the Lord knows how,

She let her head drop just a moment,
She fell asleep for the tiniest space;

And Florentin Prunier died hurriedly
And silently, not to wake her up.





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