Paul ÉLUARD – Set of four autograph poems. 1937.

Paul ELUARD (1895.1952)

Autograph manuscript.

Two pages in-12° on water green paper.

Without place or date [1937]

Very beautiful collection of four poems by Éluard from the collection Les Mains Libres published by Jeanne Bucher in 1937, with illustrations by Man Ray.

_______________________________________________________

Portable woman

Of solemn effect in solitude

Terrestrial derision of the woman

When his heart is elsewhere

If what I love is granted to me

I am saved

If what I love is withdrawn

Annihilates

I'm lost

I don't like my dreams but I tell them

And I like other people's when they show them to me.

______

Anxiety and worry

Purify rarefy sterilize destroy

Sow multiply nourish destroy

______

Paranoia

In view of the coasts

Heard of some fish

Neighbors of the earth

Let's leave the sea

Let's hold on to the movement

Firm banks

The river goes down like an egg

And we are the birds.

______

Barren eyes

She is like a bud

The flame space

Candid she has the aroma

Of lovers entwined.

_______________________________________________________

Les Mains Libres (drawings by Man Ray illustrated by poems by Éluard) was composed between the spring of 1936 and the summer of 1937.