You are here

Caterpillar

Author: 
Apollinaire

Work leads to wealth and getting.

Let us poor poets also try:

A caterpillar by fretting, fretting,

Becomes the rich butterfly.

Translated from French by Martin Bennett. From Modern Poetry in Translation, New Series no. 18, 2001

Martin Bennett translates from French and Italian, and contributed translations of poems by Primo Levi, Pasolini, Pavese, Quasimodo and Ungaretti to MPT 15 (Contemporary Italian Poets).