Louis ARAGON – War Poem – “I await his letter at dusk”.

Louis ARAGON (1897-1982)

Autograph poem – I await his letter at dusk.

A ½ in-4° page. Typographer's pencil.

[1939]

Remarkable manuscript of his poem I'm waiting for his letter at Twilight , published in the collection Le Crève-cœur, in 1941. Hours of war and resistance tinged by the love of Elsa Triolet, Aragon delivers, through these verses, the powerful expression of the melancholy which is part of this "poetry of waiting" typical of hours of war.

__________________________________________

 

I wait for his letter at dusk

 

Under a cretonne sky

Pompadour and how

A small car

Navigate

And the echo lies

And what is this song that sings

Sleeping Beauty

In the monotonous park

Where a regiment dreams

Who in the shadows confines

At the front of the beautiful autumn

 

That the hours killed

War at Crouy-sur-Ourcq

They die badly and you are

My soul and my vulture

Fog truck

Melancholic love

Which follows the avenue and

Ocean Captain

Leave for the clouds

The disturbed lands

 

Do you see my mistress?

Sad sad and dreamy

And this gilding is it

Treasure bitten often

Her earthly hairstyle

What does she say to me, O wind?

What does she tell me? Stay

Stay here as before

The Battles of the East

 

Nothing said the quartermaster

  

______________________________________

 

Le Crève-cœur was written by Aragon between October 1939 and October 1940. It contains twenty-two poems in addition to the essay La Rime in 1940 , constituting the preface to the collection. The work was published by Gallimard in 1941 in the Métamorphoses collection, then in 1942 in the Blanche collection.