This morning at the Luxembourg, this autumn at the Luxembourg, as I lived and relived my youth
No loafers, no water, no boats upon the water, no children, no flowers.
Ah! the September flowers and the sunburnt cries of children who defied the coming winter.
Only two old boys trying to play tennis.
This autumn morning without children – the children’s theatre is shut!
This Luxembourg where I cannot trace my youth, those years fresh as the lawns.
My dreams defeated, my comrades despairing, can it be so?
Behold them falling like leaves with the leaves, withered and wounded trampled to death the colour of blood
To be shovelled into what common grave?
I do not know this Luxembourg, these soldiers mounting guard.
They have put guns to protect the whispering retreat of Senators,
They have cut trenches under the bench where I first learnt the soft flowering of lips.
That notice again! Ah yes, dangerous youth!
I watch the leaves fall into the shelters, into the ditches, into the trenches
Where the blood of a generation flows.
Europe is burying the yeast of nations and the hope of newer races.