Le Pont Mirabeau (The Mirabeau Bridge)

A man stands on a Paris bridge and watches the river carry a whole love away. That is nearly all Le Pont Mirabeau does, and it has been enough to make it the most beloved short poem in French. Apollinaire wrote it as his affair with the painter Marie Laurencin was ending, and he pitched the ache of it so close to song that it has been sung ever since. The Seine slides under the arches, the days go with it, and only the poet remains, saying so in a refrain that keeps returning like the water itself. He stripped out every comma and full stop, so the lines flow with nowhere to rest, exactly like the current beneath them. Read it once and the refrain will trail you for years, a small tolling bell for everything time takes and will not give back.