from Childhood

Andrew Wyeth

4) from Childhood

I am the saint at prayer on the terrace like the

peaceful beasts that graze down to the sea of Palestine.

I am the scholar of the dark armchair. Branches

and rain hurl themselves at the windows of my library.

I am the pedestrian of the highroad by way of

the dwarf woods; the roar of the sluices drowns my

steps. I can see for a long time the melancholy wash

of the setting sun.

I might well be the child abandoned on the jetty

on its way to the high seas, the little farm boy following the lane, it's forehead touching the sky.

The paths are rough. The hillocks are covered

with broom. The air is motionless. How far away

are the birds and the springs! It can only be the end

of the world ahead.

Arthur Rimbaud

I don't have a lot to say about this poem. Each image has a distinct feeling. Saint, scholar, pedestrian, abandoned child, there is a different perspective for each stanza - as if there were different persons in us, and ages and circumstances. It could almost be a portrait, like Graves's of a few posts ago, only instead of a face, of a mood or feeling for which there are no precise words. I had a difficult time finding a painting to go with it, but Wyeth's Helga seems to me to possess the qualities of saint/scholar/pedestrian/child, all these.