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| Charles Le Brun Struggling Soldiers ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, Battle of the Granicus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Mounted Soldiers ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, Battle of the Granicus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Burden Bearer ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, Battle of the Granicus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Burden Bearer ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, Battle of the Granicus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Group of Soldiers supporting Wounded Leader ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, The Defeat of Porus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Mounted Soldiers ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, The Defeat of Porus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Armed Soldiers ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, The Defeat of Porus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Struggling Soldiers ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, The Defeat of Porus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Struggling Soldiers ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, The Defeat of Porus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Mounted Soldier ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, The Defeat of Porus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Soldier in Motion ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, The Defeat of Porus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Soldier in Motion ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, The Defeat of Porus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Mounted Soldier ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, Defeat of Porus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Mounted Soldier ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, The Defeat of Porus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Kneeling Soldier ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, The Defeat of Porus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Soldier lifting Burden ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, The Defeat of Porus) Musée du Louvre |
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| Charles Le Brun Captives bearing Burdens ca. 1665-73 drawing (study for painting, Triumph of Alexander) Musée du Louvre |
The Soldier
Saturday afternoon. The barracks is almost empty.
The soldiers are almost all on overnight pass.
There is only me, writing this letter to you,
And one other soldier, down at the end of the room,
And a spider, that hangs by the thread of his guts,
His tenacious and delicate guts, Swift's spider,
All self-regard, or else all privacy.
The dust drifts in the sunlight around him, as currents
Lie in lazy drifting schools in the vast sea.
In his little sea the spider lowers himself
Out of his depth. He is his own diving bell,
Though he cannot see well. He observes no fish,
And sees no wonderful things. His unseeing guts
Are his only hold on the world outside himself.
I love you, and miss you, and I find you hard to imagine.
Down at the end of the room, the other soldier
Is getting ready, I guess, to go out on pass.
He is shining his boots. He sits on the edge of his bunk,
Private, submissive, and heedful of himself,
And, bending over himself, he is his own nest.
The slightest sound he makes is of his being.
He is his mother, and nest, wife, brother, and father.
His boots are bright already, yet still he rubs
And rubs till, brighter still, they are his mirror.
And in this mirror he observes, I guess,
His own submissiveness. He is far from home.
– David Ferry (1960)