RENÉ DEPESTREen-ciel pour l’Occident chrétien, 1966; Pour la révolution, pour la poèsie, 1974;
Alléluia pour une femme jardin, 1981; Éros dans un train chinois, 1990; Hadriana
dans tous mes rêves, 1990; Le Mât de cocagne, 1998; Ainsi parle le fleuve noir, 1998.
Ballad of a Little Lamp
There is hope for man
Only in man’s great dazzling
For man I a≈rm it
Me, an unknown nigger in the crowd
Me, a solitary blade of grass
And wild I cry out to my century:
There will be joy for man
Only in man’s pure radiance
For man
Man’s proud leap towards his destiny
Blazing high
With the star of all men
I cry it out I whom hare-lipped
Slander has placed
In the last rank of beasts of prey
Me, towards whom falsehood always
Aims his poisoned claws
Me, whom mediocrity pursues
Night and day with wild-boar steps
Me, at whom hate often points his finger
In the streets of the world
I go forward, shepherd of my revolts
I go forward with great diamond-steps
I clasp to my wounded heart
A faith so human that often
At night its cries awaken me
As a newborn who must
Be given milk and songs
And at night tenderly I lull
My Helen, my gentle faith, my life falls
In waters of Spring over her body
I lull human dignity
And give it the rhythm of the rains
That fell in my child-nights
I go forward carrier of a faith