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Best Famous Paul Eluard Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Paul Eluard poems. This is a select list of the best famous Paul Eluard poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Paul Eluard poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of Paul Eluard poems.

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by Paul Eluard | |


 What else could we do, for the doors were guarded,
What else could we do, for they had imprisoned us,
What else could we do, for the town was asleep?
What else could we do, for she hungered and thirsted,
What else could we do, for we were defenceless,
What else could we do, for night had descended,
What else could we do, for we were in love?

by Paul Eluard | |

Five Haiku

 The wind 
Rolls a cigarette of air 

The mute girl talks: 
It is art's imperfection.
This impenetrable speech.
The motor car is truly launched: Four martyrs' heads Roll under the wheels.
Ah! a thousand flames, a fire, The light, a shadow! The sun is following me.
A feather gives to a hat A touch of lightness: The chimney smokes.

by Paul Eluard | |

Lady Love

 She is standing on my eyelids
And her hair is in my hair
She has the color of my eye
She has the body of my hand
In my shade she is engulfed
As a stone against the sky

She will never close her eyes
And she does not let me sleep
And her dreams in the bright day
Make the suns evaporate
And me laugh cry and laugh
Speak when I have nothing to say

by Paul Eluard | |

Other Children

 "Little child of my five senses 
and of my tenderness.
" Let us cradle our loves, We will have good children.
Well cared for, We will fear nothing on earth, Happiness, good fortune, prudence, Our loves And this leap from age to age, From the order of a child to that of an old man, Will not diminish us.

by Paul Eluard | |

The Absence

 I speak to you across cities
I speak to you across plains 

My mouth is upon your pillow 

Both faces of the walls come meeting
My voice discovering you 

I speak to you of eternity 

O cities memories of cities
Cities wrapped in our desires
Cities come early cities come lately
Cities strong and cities secret
Plundered of their master's builders
All their thinkers all their ghosts 

Fields pattern of emerald
Bright living surviving
The harvest of the sky over our earth
Feeds my voice I dream and weep
I laugh and dream among the flames
Among the clusters of the sun 

And over my body your body spreads
The sheet of it's bright mirror.

by Paul Eluard | |

The Deaf and Blind

 Do we reach the sea with clocks 
In our pockets, with the noise of the sea 
In the sea, or are we the carriers 
Of a purer and more silent water? 

The water rubbing against our hands sharpens knives.
The warriors have found their weapons in the waves And the sound of their blows is like The rocks that smash the boats at night.
It is the storm and the thunder.
Why not the silence Of the flood, for we have dreamt within us Space for the greatest silence and we breathe Like the wind over terrible seas, like the wind That creeps slowly over every horizon.

by Paul Eluard | |

The Nakedness of Truth (I know it well)

 Despair has no wings,
Nor has love,
No countenance:
They do not speak.

by Paul Eluard | |

The River

 The river I have under my tongue,
Unimaginable water, my little boat,
And curtains lowered, let's speak.

by Paul Eluard | |


 A few grains of dust more or less 
On ancient shoulders 
Locks of weakness on weary foreheads 
This theatre of honey and faded roses 
Where incalcuable flies 
Reply to the black signs that misery makes to them 
Despairing girders of a bridge 
Thrown across space 
Thrown across every street and every house 
Heavy wandering madnesses 
That we shall end by knowing by heart 
Mechanical appetites and uncontrolled dances 
That lead to the regret of hatred 

Nostalgia of justice

by Paul Eluard | |

I Cannot be Known

 I cannot be known
Better than you know me 

Your eyes in which we sleep
We together
Have made for my man's gleam
A better fate than for the common nights 

Your eyes in which I travel
Have given to signs along the roads
A meaning alien to the earth 

In your eyes who reveal to us
Our endless solitude 

Are no longer what they thought themselves to be 

You cannot be known
Better than I know you.

by Paul Eluard | |

La courbe de tes yeux

 La courbe de tes yeux fait le tour de mon coeur, 
Un rond de danse et de douceur, 
Auréole du temps, berceau nocturne et sûr, 
Et si je ne sais plus tout ce que j'ai vécu 
C'est que tes yeux ne m'ont pas toujours vu.
Feuilles de jour et mousse de rosée, Roseaux du vent, sourires parfumés, Ailes couvrant le monde de lumière, Bateaux chargés du ciel et de la mer, Chasseurs des bruits et sources de couleurs, Parfums éclos d'une couvée d'aurores Qui gît toujours sur la paille des astres, Comme le jour dépend de l'innocence Le monde entier dépend de tes yeux purs Et tout mon sang coule dans leurs regards.