Rains

by Saint-John Perse, Denis Devlin (Translator)

The French poem, with an English translation by Denis Devlin.

27 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1945

About the author

Works of French poet and diplomat Alexis Saint-Léger Léger under pen name of Saint-John Perse include Anabase (1924) and Chronique (1960); he won the Nobel Prize of 1960 for literature.

He came from an old Bourguignon family, which settled in the Antilles in the 17th century and returned at the end of the 19th century.

Perse studied law at Bordeaux and, after private studies in political science, went into the service in 1914. A brilliant career ensued. He served first in the embassy at Peking. People published his work chiefly under the pseudonyms. After various reflections on the impressions of his childhood, he wrote in China. An epic puzzled many critics and gave rise to the suggestion that an Asian ably understands it better than by a westerner.

He later in the foreign office held top positions under Aristide Briand as its administrative head.

He left for the United States in 1940, and the regime at Vichy deprived him of his citizenship and possessions. From 1941 to 1945, he served as adviser to the Library of Congress. After the war, he resumed not his career and in 1950 retired officially with the title of ambassador. He made the United States his permanent residence.

After he settled in the United States, he wrote much of his work. Exil (Exile) (1942) fully masters man, merge, imagery, and diction.
* Poème l'Etrangère (Poem to a Foreign Lady), 1943;
* Pluies (Rains) (1943);
* Neiges (Snows) (1944);
* Vents (Winds) (1946) of war and peace blow well within and outside man;
* In Amers (Seamarks) (1957), the sea redounds as an image of the timelessness of man.
His abstract epic followed.

People awarded him "for the soaring flight and the evocative imagery of his poetry which in a visionary fashion reflects the conditions of our time."

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Terrible Lord of my laughter, behold the earth smoking with a venison taste,

Widow clay under virgin water, earth washed of the steps of sleepless men,

And, sniffed close like wine, does it not truly bring on loss of memory?”
—
“It is weapons by armfuls, it is girls by cartloads, a presentation of eagles to the legions,

A rising with pikes in the slums for the youngest peoples of the earth — broken sheaves of dissolute virgins,

O great unbound sheaves! harvest ample and live poured back in the arms of men!”
—
“O Rains! wash from the heart of man the most beautiful sayings of man; the weighty aphorism, the purple passage; the well-turned phrase, the noble page. Wash, wash, from the hearts of men, their taste for roundelays and for elegies; their taste for vilanelles and rondeaux; their great felicities of expression; wash attic salt and euphuist honey, wash, wash, the bedding of dream and the litter of knowledge: from the heart of the man who makes no refusals, from the heart of the man who has no disgusts, wash, wash, O Rains! the most beautiful gifts of man... from the hearts of the most gifted men, for the great works of reason."
—
“But see us now delivered more naked to this smell of mould and benjamin where the black-virgin earth awakens.

…It is earth fresher in the heart of the fern-brakes, the rising of great fossils flush with dripping marls,

And in the harrowed flesh of roses after the storm, earth, earth with the taste again of woman made woman”