Cocteau, Jean, French poet, painter and playwright (1889-1963). "Pourtant ce n'est plus l'age". Autograph poem signed ("JC").

€ 1.200,00

Charming unpublished poem of 6 quatrains describing the transition from adolescence to adulthood. The first three stanzas of the untitled poem begin, "Pourtant ce n'est plus l'age", discussing changes of the body, but also innocence in terms of morality and sexuality. In the third stanza, Cocteau invokes a personification of the chrysalis, the "chaste hermaphroditus", and the "puerile Sphinx" in a garden of "secret trees" to tell them, in the following quatrain: "It's over - no more of these astonished gazes, | That pure, scentless lily in the centre of the snow | Those trips that start on the school benches [...]". The final stanza deals with grief and eternal recurrence: "Alors pourquoi faut-il que ce mal recommence | Et ce récent passé qui semble un jeune fils ? | Hélas ! Serai-ce toi, comme tu vins jadis, | Serai-ce toi qui pars ô mon adolescence?".

Minor tears and minimally soiled.