The Past’s Great Power Overpowers Every Hour
Dear Citizens,We live upon the past and day by dayThe past destroys us. Who can look back?And who can see the back of his head?And who can see the depths of his mind?Who can turn so his head upon his neckThat as he runs he holds the past in view?For who can look both north and south at once?Come, let us play cache-cache or blind-man's bluff,And pin the tail on the abundant goat for all our guilt,As if we did not know in blind-man's bluffAnd all the arts and all the games each oneBut seeks himself? As if you never knew at allThat everywhere you tour, you take yourself. When, Citizens,I placed a seashell to my ear, I heardMy heart roar PANDEMONIUM, which was to sayEvery devil from hell yells in your heart,Or shuffles coarsely as coal rides down a chute.For is it not, in truth, an obscene play,The past which senselessly recites in us,Obsessive as the whippoorwill,Like starlight on the pane, irrational,—Inspired by what? inspired by the blazeof the true, the good, and the beautiful.Awake, my dears, and be deceived no more:What is our hope, except to tell the truth?
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- August 31, 2024
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“The Past’s Great Power Overpowers Every Hour” by Delmore Schwartz, from VAUDEVILLE FOR A PRINCESS, copyright ©1950 by New Directions Publishing Corp.
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Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
Delmore Schwartz (1913–1966) was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. A brilliant poet, short-story writer, and literary talent, he contributed “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” to the first issue of Partisan Review. His books include Shenandoah and Other Verse Plays; the works of poetry Genesis: Book One and Summer Knowledge; and the short-fiction collections The World Is a Wedding and Successful Love and Other Stories. Schwartz taught at Syracuse, Princeton, and Kenyon College, and received the Bollingen Prize in 1959.
New York City, New York
"O Delmore how I miss you. You inspired me to write. You were the greatest man I ever met. You could capture the deepest emotions in the simplest language. Your titles were more than enough to raise the muse of fire on my neck. You were a genius. Doomed."
—Lou Reed
“The emblematic tortured poet, Schwartz is worth reading not simply for what he achieved but for what he made possible.”
―Maggie Doherty, The New Yorker
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