Wallace Stevens. "Lettres d'un Soldat". Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

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Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

“Lettres d’un Soldat”

By Wallace Stevens


Combattre avec ses frères, à sa place, à son rang, avec des yeux dessillés, sans espoir de la gloire et de profit, et simplement parceque telle est la loi, voilà le commandement que donne le dieu au guerrier Arjuna, quand celui-ci doute s’il doit se détourner de l’absolu pour le cauchemar humain de la bataille…. Simplement qu’Arjuna bande son arc avec les autres Kshettryas! (Préface d’André Chevrillon.) I Jamais la majesté de la nuit ne m’apporta autant de consolation qu’en cette accumulation d’épreuves. Vénus, étincelante, m’est une amie. (27 septembre) THE SPIRIT wakes in the night wind—is naked.
What is it that hides in the night wind
Near by it?

Is it, once more, the mysterious beauté,
Like a woman inhibiting passion	5
In solace?—

The multiform beauty, sinking in night wind,
Quick to be gone, yet never
Quite going!

She will leap back from the swift constellations,	10
As they enter the place of their western
Seclusion.

II Ce qu’il faut, c’est reconnaître l’amour et la beauté triomphante de toute violence. (22 octobre) ANECDOTAL REVERY The streets contain a crowd
Of blind men tapping their way
By inches—	15
This man to complain to the grocer
Of yesterday’s cheese,
This man to visit a woman,
This man to take the air.
Am I to pick my way	20
Through these crickets?—
I, that have a head
In the bag
Slung over my shoulder!
I have secrets	25
That prick
Like a heart full of pins.
Permit me, gentlemen,
I have killed the mayor
And am escaping from you.	30
Get out of the way!
(The blind men strike him down with their sticks.)

III Jusqu’à présent j’ai possédé une sagesse de renoncement, mais maintenant je veux une sagesse qui accepte tout, en s’orientant vers l’action future. (31 octobre) MORALE And so France feels. A menace that impends,
Too long, is like a bayonet that bends.

IV Si tu voyais la sécurité des petits animaux des bois—souris, mulots! L’autre jour, dans notre abri de feuillage, je suivais les évolutions de ces petits bêtes. Elles étaient jolies comme une estampe japonaise, avec l’intérieur de leurs oreilles rose comme un coquillage. (7 novembre) COMME DIEU DISPENSE DE GRACES Here I keep thinking of the Primitives—	35
The sensitive and conscientious schemes
Of mountain pallors ebbing into air;

And I remember sharp Japonica—
The driving rain, the willows in the rain,
The birds that wait out rain in willow trees.	40

Although life seems a goblin mummery,
These images return and are increased,
As for a child in an oblivion:

Even by mice—these scamper and are still.
They cock small ears, more glistening and pale	45
Than fragile volutes in a rose sea-shell.

V J’ai la ferme espérance; mais surtout j’ai confiance en la justice éternelle, quelque surprise qu’elle cause à l’humaine idée que nous en avons. (26 novembre) THE SURPRISES OF THE SUPERHUMAN The palais de justice of chambermaids
Tops the horizon with its colonnades.

If it were lost in Uebermenschlichkeit,
Perhaps our wretched state would soon come right.	50

For somehow the brave dicta of its kings
Make more awry our faulty human things.

VI Bien chère mère aimée,… Pour ce qui est de ton cœur, j’ai tellement confiance en ton courage, qu’à l’heure actuelle cette certitude est mon grand réconfort. Je sais que ma mère a atteint à cette liberté d’âme qui permet de contempler le spectacle universel. (7 décembre) There is another mother whom I love,
O chère maman, another, who, in turn,
Is mother to the two of us, and more,	55
In whose hard service both of us endure
Our petty portion in the sacrifice.
Not France! France also serves the invincible eye,
That, from her helmet terrible and bright,
Commands the armies; the relentless arm,	60
Devising proud, majestic issuance.
Wait now; have no rememberings of hope,
Poor penury. There will be voluble hymns
Come swelling, when, regardless of my end,
The mightier mother raises up her cry:	65
And little will or wish, that day, for tears.

VII La seule sanction pour moi est ma conscience. Il faut nous confier à une justice impersonelle, indépendante de tout facteur humain; et à une destinée utile et harmonieuse malgré toute horreur de forme. (15 janvier) NEGATION Hi! The creator too is blind,
Struggling toward his harmonious whole,
Rejecting intermediate parts—
Horrors and falsities and wrongs;	70
Incapable master of all force,
Too vague idealist, overwhelmed
By an afflatus that persists.
For this, then, we endure brief lives,
The evanescent symmetries	75
From that meticulous potter’s thumb.

VIII Hier soir, rentrant dans ma grange, ivresse, rixes, cris, chants, et hurlements. Voilà la vie! (4 février) John Smith and his son John Smith,
And his son’s son John, and-a-one
And-a-two and-a-three
And-a-rum-tum-tum, and-a	80
Lean John, and his son, lean John,
And his lean son’s John, and-a-one
And-a-two and-a-three
And-a-drum-rum-rum, and-a
Rich John, and his son, rich John,	85
And his rich son’s John, and-a-one
And-a-two and-a-three
And-a-pom-pom-pom, and-a
Wise John, and his son, wise John,
And his wise son’s John, and-a-one	90
And-a-two and-a-three
And-a-fee and-a-fee and-a-fee
And-a-fee-fo-fum—
Voilà la vie, la vie, la vie,
And-a-rummy-tummy-tum	95
And-a-rummy-tummy-tum.

IX La mort du soldat est près des choses naturelles. (5 mars) Life contracts and death is expected,
As in a season of autumn.
The soldier falls.

He does not become a three-days’ personage,	100
Imposing his separation,
Calling for pomp.

Death is absolute and without memorial,
As in a season of autumn,
When the wind stops.	105

When the wind stops and, over the heavens,
The clouds go, nevertheless,
In their direction.

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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