306
PARTISAN REVIEW
the favorable judgment of all the ages which he seeks. For what does
it mean to be praised by one's own age, which is soaked
in
crimes
and stupidity, except perhaps that future ages, wise where we are
foolish, will see him as a typical expression of this age's crimes and
stupidity? Nor is lack of success a guarantee of great poetry, though
there are some who pretend that it is. Nor can the critics, at any rate
beyond a certain limited point of technical judgment,
be
trusted.
The poet's faith is therefore, firstly, a mystique of vocation, sec–
ondly, a faith in his own truth, combined with his own devotion to
a task. There can really be no greater faith than the confidence that
one is doing oneJs utmost to fulfil one's high vocation, and it is this
that has inspired all the greatest poets. At the same time
th~
faith
is coupled with a deep humility because one knows that, ultimately,
judgment does not rest with oneself. All one can do is to achieve
nakedness, to be what one is with all one's faculties and perceptions,
strengthened by all the skill which one can acquire, and then to stand
before the judgment of time.
In my Notebooks, I find the following Prose Poem, which ex-
presses these thoughts:
Bring me peace bring me power bring me assuranc(!l. Let me
reach the bright day, the high chair, the plain desk, where
my hand at last controls the words, where anxiety no longer
undermines me. If I don't reach these I'm thrown to the
wolves, I' m a restless animal wandering from place to place,
from experience to experience .
Give me the humility and the judgme-nt to live alone
with the deep and rich satisfaction of my own creating: not
to be thrown into doubt by a word of spite or disapproval.
In th8 last analysis don't mind whether your work is
gfJod or bad so long as it has the completeness, the enormity
of the whole world which you love.
Song.
Inspiration and song are the irreducible final qualities of a poet
which make his vocation different from all others. Inspiration is an
experience in which a line or an idea is given to one, and perhaps
also a state of mind in which one writes one's best poetry. Song is
far more difficult to define. It
is-
the music which a poem as yet
unthought of will assume, the empty womb of poetry for ever in the
poet's consciousness, waiting for the fertilizing seed.
