Reply to Papini Wallace Stevens

In all the solemn moments of human history . . . poets rose to sing the hymn of victory or the psalm of supplication. . . Cease, then, from being the astute calligraphers of congealed daydreams, the hunters of cerebral phosphorescences.

LETTER OF CELESTIN VI, POPE,
TO THE POETS
P.C.C. GIOVANNI PAPINI

I
Poor procurator, why do you ask someone else
To say what Celestin should say for himself?

He has an ever-living subject. The poet
Has only the formulations of midnight.

Is Celestin dislodged? The way through the world
Is more difficult to find than the way beyond it.

You know that the nucleus of a time is not
The poet but the poem, the growth of the mind

Of the world, the heroic effort to live expressed
As victory. The poet does not speak in ruins

Nor stand there making orotund consolations.
He shares the confusions of intelligence.