Muy poco antes de la guerra [Avant la guerre] [English translation]

My twenty insolent years,

Your fifteen innocent years

They dedicated a thousand poems to you

Rhyming on the same topic.

You were just a girl

Very shortly before the war.

On the threshold of adolescence,

When desire is impatience

Sad nestled purity,

And I loved you without much know-how

Our witness was the sand

Very shortly before the war.

To the rhythm of a guilty love

The inevitable happened:

She lost her waistline, her sweetness

And they made us marry in haste.

Life changed, and this was

Very shortly before the war.

A lacklustre uniform

A rifle and four cartridges,

Burnt fields of the vanquished,

And barbed wire in the wheat.

This happened in other lands,

A little before the war.

Where were your fifteen years

And the glowing red of your ties,

When joy reigned

Without worrying about life,

When we ignored our troubles,

A little before the war?

Yes, of war, yes, of war,

The war.