Saint-Just 1767-1793
Saint-Just: his name seems stolen from the Missal…
His chamois coat, the dandy’s vast cravate
knotted with pretentious negligence;
he carried his head like the Holy Sacrament.
He thought only the laconic fit to rule
the austerity of his hideous cardboard Sparta
“I must move with the stone footstep of the sun–
faction plagues the course of revolution,
as reptiles follow the dry bed of a torrent.
I am young and therefore close to nature.
Happiness is a new idea in Europe;
we bronzed liberty with the guillotine.
I’m still twenty, I’ve done badly, I’ll do better.”
He did, the scaffold, “Je sais ou je vais.”
Robert Lowell
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