Et vous aurez alors des pensers ridicules.
— C'est en dix neuf cent un qu'un poète m'aima.
Seule je me souviens, moi, vieille qui spécule,
De sa laideur au taciturne qui m'aima.
Je suis laid, par hasard, à cette heure et vous, belle,
Vous attendez le ravisseur longtemps promis
Qui déploie comme un mirage du mont Gibel
Le bonheur d'être deux toujours et endormis.
Très humbles devant voue pleureront des Ricombres
Dormant l'anneau gemmal pour l'éternel baiser
Et des pauvres fameux pour vous vendraient leur ombre
Puis, loin de vous, pensifs, mourraient d'un cœur brisé…
Guillaume Apollinaire (French: [ɡijom apɔlinɛʁ]; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish-Belarusian descent.
Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the early 20th century, as well as one of the most impassioned defenders of Cubism and a forefather of Surrealism. He is credited with coining the term "cubism" in 1911 to describe the emerging art movement and the term "surrealism" in 1917 to describe the works of Erik Satie. The term Orphism (1912) is also his. Apollinaire wrote one of the earliest Surrealist literary works, the play The Breasts of Tiresias (1917), which became the basis for Francis Poulenc's 1947 opera Les mamelles de Tirésias.
Apollinaire was active as a journalist and art critic for Le Matin, L'Intransigeant, L'Esprit nouveau, Mercure de France, and Paris Journal. In 1912 Apollinaire cofounded Les Soirées de Paris, an artistic and literary magazine.
Two years after being wounded in World War I, Apollinaire died in the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918; he was 38.