The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

PAUL CLAUDEL

Holding out their arms and looking like sad lighthouses in the rain
Bella, Agnès, Catherine, and the mother of my son in Italy
And she who is the mother of my love in America

Sometimes the cry of a whistle tears me apart
Over in Manchuria a belly is still heaving, as if giving
birth
I wish
I wish I’d never started traveling
Tonight a great love is driving me out of my mind
And I can’t help thinking about little Jeanne of France.
It’s through a sad night that I’ve written this poem in her honor
Jeanne
the little prostitute
I’m sad so sad
I’m going to the Lapin Agile to remember my lost youth again
Have a few drinks
And come back home alone

Paris

City of the incomparable Tower the great Gibbet and the Wheel
—ron padgett

Paul Claudel 1868–1955

villeneuve-sur-fère, france

A

poet, essayist, and dramatist, Claudel was influenced early on by the

Symbolists. Although his Catholic upbringing snu√ed out his faith, he

reconverted dramatically to Catholicism on Christmas Day of 1886

after a religious revelation. From 1893 to 1955 he served in diplomatic posts across

America, Europe, and China. His travels in the Orient provided him with mate-

rial for the prose poems entitled Connaissance de l’Est (1900). He also served as