{"id":256,"date":"2025-09-24T22:20:27","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T22:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/?p=256"},"modified":"2026-01-28T19:00:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T19:00:59","slug":"st-armorers-church-from-the-outside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/?p=256","title":{"rendered":"St. Armorer\u2019s Church from the Outside\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

An armorer is a manufacturer of firearms. There is no real \u201cSt. Armorer.\u201d\u00a0 Stevens got the idea for him from the Church of the Good Shepherd<\/a> on Wyllys Street in Hartford. This church was built to honor Samuel Colt, the wealthy manufacturer of firearms\u2014most famously the Colt pistol\u2014who lived in Hartford. It is now part of Coltsville National Historical Park<\/a>.\u00a0 The most striking aspect of this church is the Armorer\u2019s Porch which features Colt pistols and other gun parts carved into its fa\u00e7ade (see photos below).<\/em><\/p>\n

Stevens places his St. Armorer\u2019s Church in France.\u00a0 (Notice the French words in the poem:\u00a0 \u201cTerre Ensevelie,\u201d \u201cen voyage,\u201d \u201cvif.\u201d)\u00a0 The time is just after World War II and the church is in ruins, like much of Europe.\u00a0 It is a symbol of the past, of old ideas that are outdated or have been destroyed.\u00a0 In its place, Stevens imagines a \u201cchapel of breath,\u201d a living site of rebirth and hope for the future.<\/em><\/p>\n

St. Armorer\u2019s Church from the Outside<\/strong><\/h2>\n

by Wallace Stevens<\/strong><\/p>\n

St. Armorer’s was once an immense success.
\nIt rose loftily and stood massively; and to lie
\nIn its church-yard, in the province of St. Armorer’s,
\nFixed one for good in geranium-colored day.<\/p>\n

What is left has the foreign smell of plaster,
\nThe closed-in smell of hay. A sumac grows
\nOn the altar, growing toward the lights, inside.
\nReverberations leak and lack among holes . . .<\/p>\n

Its chapel rises from Terre Ensevelie,
\nAn ember yes among its cindery noes,
\nHis own: a chapel of breath, an appearance made
\nFor a sign of meaning in the meaningless,<\/p>\n

No radiance of dead blaze, but something seen
\nIn a mystic eye, no sign of life but life,
\nItself, the presence of the intelligible
\nIn that which is created as its symbol.<\/p>\n

It is like a new account of everything old,
\nMatisse at Vence and a great deal more than that,
\nA new-colored sun, say, that will soon change forms
\nAnd spread hallucinations on every leaf.<\/p>\n

The chapel rises, his own, his period,
\nA civilization formed from the outward blank,
\nA sacred syllable rising from sacked speech,
\nThe first car out of a tunnel en voyage<\/p>\n

Into lands of ruddy-ruby fruits, achieved
\nNot merely desired, for sale, and market things
\nThat press, strong peasants in a peasant world,
\nTheir purports to a final seriousness–<\/p>\n

Final for him, the acceptance of such prose,
\nTime’s given perfections made to seem like less
\nThan the need of each generation to be itself,
\nThe need to be actual and as it is.<\/p>\n

St. Armorer’s has nothing of this present,
\nThis vif<\/em>, this dizzle-dazzle of being new
\nAnd of becoming, for which the chapel spreads out
\nIts arches in its vivid element,<\/p>\n

In the air of newness of that element,
\nIn an air of freshness, clearness, greenness, blueness,
\nThat which is always beginning because it is part
\nOf that which is always beginning, over and over.<\/p>\n

The chapel underneath St. Armorer’s walls,
\nStands in a light, its natural light and day,
\nThe origin and keep of its health and his own.
\nAnd there he walks and does as he lives and likes.<\/p>\n

\n

Glossary<\/strong>
\nTerre Ensevelie<\/em>: \u201cburied earth\u201d
\nMatisse<\/em>:\u00a0 Henri Matisse, the most famous French painter of the twentieth century
\nVence<\/em>: a small town on the French Riviera.\u00a0 Matisse designed and built his Chapel of the Rosary there.
\nen voyage<\/em>: \u201cwhile traveling\u201d
\nvif<\/em>: \u201clively,\u201d \u201calive\u201d<\/p>\n