mousme | After the sumbel (Reply)

This was what I sang at the sumbel after climbing Camel's Hump:

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

"Le Pont Mirabeau"
Apollinaire, Alcools (1912)

Last year, when I went to Paris with my parents, my father accompanied me to see the bridge, which has held a special place in my heart ever since the first time I read this poem.

We took the 72 bus along the Seine.

My father knew where we were going, luckily. It seemed appropriate for him to come with me, since he's the one who introduced me to Apollinaire's poetry, when I was very young.

One imagines all the bridges in Paris to be extremely old, but this one is pretty young, by most standards. I remember being kind of surprised by how recently it had been built. The copper would have been still recently tarnished when the poem was written.

And the poem, of course:

I'm not sure why I was surprised by the presence of statues, but I was. I always pictured the bridge as being made of stone only. It was a pleasant surprise.