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"The sun never sets on soil that has not been soaked with the blood of Legionnaires" |
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Rendezvous I have a rendezvous with Death,
at some disputed barricade.
I have a rendezvous with Death.
When Spring comes back with rustling shade,
and apple blossoms fill the air,
I have a rendezvous with Death,
when Spring brings back blue days and fair. It may be he shall take my hand
and lead me into his dark land,
and close my eyes and quench my breath,
it may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death,
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
when Spring comes round again this year
And the meadow flowers do first appear. God knows 'twere better to be deep,
pillowed in silk and scented down,
where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
where hushed awakenings are dear.
But I've a rendezvous with Death
at midnight in some flaming town,
when Spring trips north again this year
and I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous. |
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American Legionnaire Alan Seeger (1888-1916) was killed in action July 4, at Belloy-en-Santerre, France. Legionnaire Alan Seeger, mort au combat a Belloy-en-Santerre, le 4 Juillet, 1916 |
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PRIERE DE PARA Donnez-moi, mon Dieu, ce qui vous reste
Donnez-moi ce qu'on ne vous demande jamais.
Je ne vous demande pas le repos
Ni la tranquillité
Ni celle de l'âme, ni celle du corps.
Je ne vous demande pas la richesse
Ni le succès, ni même la santé.
Tout ça, mon Dieu, on vous le demande tellement
Que vous ne devez plus en avoir.
Donnez-moi, mon Dieu, ce qui vous reste
Donnez-moi ce que l'on vous refuse.
Je veux l'insécurité et l'inquiétude.
Je veux la tourmente et la bagarre
Et que vous me les donniez, mon Dieu, définitivement.
Que je sois sûr de les avoir toujours
Car je n'aurai pas toujours le courage
De vous les demander.
Donnez-moi, mon Dieu, ce qui vous reste.
Donnez-moi ce dont les autres ne veulent pas.
Mais donnez-moi aussi le courage
Et la force et la foi.
Car vous seul donnez, mon Dieu,
Ce que l'on ne peut attendre que de soi.
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THE PARATROOPER'S PRAYER I'm asking You God, to give me what You have left. Give me those things which others never ask of You. I don't ask You for rest, or tranquility. Not that of the spirit, the body, or the mind. I don't ask You for wealth, or success, or even health. All those things are asked of You so much Lord, that you can't have any left to give. Give me instead Lord what You have left. Give me what others don't want. I want uncertainty and doubt. I want torment and battle. And I ask that You give them to me now and forever Lord, so I can be sure to always have them, because I won't always have the strength to ask again. But give me also the courage, the energy, and the spirit to face them. I ask You these things Lord, because I can't ask them of myself. By Lt. Andre Zirnheld Translated from the original French by Robert Petersen |
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André Zirnheld (1913-1942)
Parachutiste de la France Libre,
mort au combat en Libye.
This prayer was found on the body of Aspirant (Lt.) Andre Zirnheld, killed in action in Libya, in July 1942, during a raid behind enemy lines. A college philosophy professor before the war, Aspirant Zirnheld served in one of the very first companies of the famed S.A.S.
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Though Lt. Zirnheld never served in the Foreign Legion, his prayer has been adopted by all French Paratroopers, the Legion included. |
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THE MAN FROM ATHABASKA For I joined the Foreign Legion, and they put me for a starter
In the trenches of the Argonne with the Boche a step away;
And the partner on my right hand was an apache from Montmartre;
On my left there was a millionaire from Pittsburg, U. S. A.
( Poor fellow! They collected him in bits the other day. )
But I'm sprier than a chipmunk, save a touch of the lumbago, And they calls me Old Methoosalah, and `blagues' me all the day.
I'm their exhibition sniper, and they work me like a Dago,
And laugh to see me plug a Boche a half a mile away.
Oh I hold the highest record in the regiment, they say.
And at night they gather round me, and I tell them of my roaming
In the Country of the Crepuscule beside the Frozen Sea,
Where the musk-ox runs unchallenged, and the cariboo goes homing; And they sit like little children, just as quiet as can be:
Men of every crime and colour, how they harken unto me!
And I tell them when it's over how I'll hike for Athabaska;
And those seven greasy poilus they are crazy to go too. For I've had my fill of fighting, and I've seen a nation scattered,
And an army swung to slaughter, and a river red with gore,
And a city all a-smoulder, and . . . as if it really mattered,
For the lake is yonder dreaming, and my cabin's on the shore;
And the dogs are leaping madly, and the wife is singing gladly,
And I'll rest in Athabaska, and I'll leave it nevermore.
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The above is only an excerpt from the poem. To read it in it's entirety, click on the link below |
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Robert Service (1874-1958) was born in England but grew up in northern Canada, and is famous for his poems about life in the Yukon |
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AUGUST 1917 I awake from a dream of laughter and sun, to the mud and the rain and my hole in the ground, as the earth shakes and rolls with the roar of the guns, this concert of death, so familiar and close. There near to me huddles my comrade-in-arms, so young, just like me, so lean and so hard, with white-knuckled fists and tightly-drawn lips, his thoughts of his family, his friends, and his home, or a girl that he loved for one night. We share a quick word, a smoke, and a smile. I try to act brave, and hope not to die. Then all is forgotten, the battle begun, and death spreads amongst us, as bullets and bombs shred the flesh of young men, not caring whose side they are on. We move in a nightmare of thunder and flame, where cries from the dying eat holes in the brain. Then a sudden great silence heralds the end, the battle is over, till next comes again. I look for my friend, on that carnage-strewn hill, I see him beside me, he lies now quite still. And I watch, as his hopes and his dreams and his youth stain the ground, spilling out through a hole in his chest. And it seems sightless eyes search the sky, for the answers to questions about honour and glory, but the rain is the only reply. So I cover him up, and shudder, and wait, for my turn to grasp that chill hand of fate. As I mumble a prayer, I think of his face, not so old it would seem in terms of his years, but aged by the hell of this place. Then fatigue numbs my body, and sleep drags me down, as I settle back into my hole in the ground. Tomorrow will come, and with it a fight, but for now I can dream of laughter and sun, and a girl that I loved for one night. By Robert Petersen |
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Robert Petersen Ancien Legionnaire Parachutiste Canadien Canadian ex-Legionnaire Paratrooper |
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Blaise Cendrars (1887-1961) Ecrivian, poete, peintre, et Legionnaire Suisse Swiss writer, poet, painter, and Legionnaire |
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Charcoal by Yves Brayer BIOGRAPHY OF SWISS WRITER, POET & LEGIONNAIRE BLAISE CENDRARS BLAISE CENDRARS (real name Fredéric Sauser), writer, poet, artist, musician, adventurer, millionaire, vagabond and film-maker was born in Switzerland in 1887 – one of the few supportable facts about his life given Cendrars’ penchant for fabrication. With a disclaimer for accuracy, the Cendrars ‘legend’ can be broadly delivered as thus: at the age of 15 his father discovered he had been subscribing to obscene publications, had run up debts and had a mistress; locked in his room, he jumped to freedom from his 2nd floor window. After travelling across Russia and Persia in the employment of a jewel merchant, and possibly to China where he claims to have stoked trains, he enrolled at the University of Berne in 1907. By 1910 he had abandoned medical studies and was settled in Paris where he befriended (and influenced) the poets Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire, the leader of the artistic avant-garde. Cendrars came to be closely identified with Cubism and the origins of the modern movement in literature. Turning to performance, he juggled in London and played piano in New York. In America Cendrars began to write poetry seriously (his major poems were later translated by John Dos Passos). Back in Paris, his apocalyptic poem Transsiberian was printed on 2-metre pages mounted with parallel works by the painter Sonia Delauney. In 1914 Cendrars joined the Foreign Legion and lost his right arm (the writing one) during WW1. He refused an artificial limb, priding himself thereafter on one-handed skill at shooting, fast driving, typing and brawling. He appeared in Zurich 1916 as a contributor to the Dadaist Cabaret Voltaire. After the war he worked in films as a writer and assistant director to Abel Gance. The train montage in La Roue (1921) is work of Cendrars. He later went on to make films under his own name. In the 1920s he published three novels, Moravagine, Dan Yack and The Confessions of Dan Yack and in the next decade a number of ‘novelized’ biographies or volumes of extravagant reportage such as Gold (rumoured to be a favourite book of Stalin). Painted by Bakst, Léger, Modigliani and Chagall, Cendrars was a vociferous promoter of all artistic innovation and discovery, particularly jazz, the composers Hönegger and Milhaud and the modern sound of ‘Les Six’. He published the first of a projected trilogy based on his travels in Africa and South America; he visited the latter constantly from 1921 to 1936, often taking his Alfa Romeo racing car – decorated by George Braque – along for the trip. He reissued Lautréamont’s 1868 volume Les Chants de Maldoror, leading to the dead writer’s near-deification by the emerging Surrealists. Introduced to Hemingway, it was Henry Miller he chose instead to bring to the notice of the French public when he proclaimed Miller’s book Tropic of Cancer (1934). In 1934 he began to report for Paris-Soir, with notable despatches from Hollywood (1936) and the Spanish Civil War. During the early months of WW2 Cendrars was a war correspondent attached to the British Army but with the fall of France he retired to Aix-en-Provence. Listed as a Jewish writer of ‘French expression’ he did not write again until 1944 when he began a series of memoirs, arguably his greatest works. To the End of the World (1956) was his last novel before a final illness. Days before his death in 1961 he was awarded the Paris Grand Prix for Literature.
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