[In Pluies, a] magnificent poem, which is at once a kind of litany, or litany of litanies, and an allegorical history of mankind, a history in terms of metaphor, the poet drives his tandem of methods with complete mastery. The whole meaning, the history of man in terms of rain, or the interpretation of him in terms of rain—rain as the fertilizer, rain as the purifier, even as the principle itself of life and change—gives a majestic centripetal design to the poem, and a tremendous sense of controlled richness, but it is also of such a nature, even more so than in the case of Anabase, as to make the utmost possible use of incidental, but directed, improvisation. With the beginning of each of his nine canticles the poet can return, as it were, to his base, his central theme, only then to allow himself, in...