Skip to content

The Pont Mirabeau

Under the pont Mirabeau flows the Seine
         With it our loves
    And strange to be minded
Joy follows always after pain

 

Let night come on, mark the time,
The days run by while I remain

 

Hand in hand, standing face to face
         While under the bridge
    We make of our arms
Flow our endless looks in weary watery waves

 

         Let night come on, mark the time
         The days run by while I remain

 

Love runs away as this water flows
         Love runs away
    And life is so slow
And hope so keen

 

        Let night come on, mark the time
        The days run by while I remain

 

The days pass and the weeks pass
         And neither time that is past
    Nor love returns
Under the pont Mirabeau flows the Seine

 

        Let night come on, mark the time
        The days run by while I remain

    Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
               Et nos amours
         Faut-il qu’il m’en souvienne
    La joie venait toujours après la peine

 

               Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
               Les jours s’en vont je demeure

 

    Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
               Tandis que sous
         Le pont de nos bras passe
    Des éternels regards l’onde si lasse

 

               Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
               Les jours s’en vont je demeure

 

    L’amour s’en va comme cette eau courante
               L’amour s’en va
         Comme la vie est lente
    Et comme l’Espérance est violente

 

               Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
               Les jours s’en vont je demeure

 

    Passent les jours et passent les semaines
               Ni temps passé
         Ni les amours reviennent
    Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

 

               Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
               Les jours s’en vont je demeure

A new translation of one of Guillaume Apollinaire’s most celebrated poems, translated by Harold Jones, poet-in-residence, VOEGELINVIEW, 2024.
Avatar photo

Harold Jones is a New Zealander, educated at Cambridge University, where he was awarded an Exhibition to read English. His poetry has been widely published in UK and NZ literary journals. He has been a prize-winner in national UK and NZ poetry competitions, and, as a lyricist, in the UK Songwriting Contest, the largest such event in the world. A selection of his work in AUP New Poets Four (Auckland University Press, 2011), drew the UK review, “this excellent poet, a kind of Ted Hughes crossed with Bukowski,” with a further selection, Curriculum Vitae (Xlibris, 2014), reviewed in NZ as “downright incredible.” His work has won the acclaim of pre-eminent critics and poets: among them, Al Alvarez, “I like the elegance and control, the drive to say something rather than just to cut a fashionable figure," and Ted Hughes, “I hear a real voice, a real movement of mind cutting through resistances.” In the US his poems appear in Merion West and VoegelinView.

Back To Top