a young time

---------------- [Introduction.] ---------- Among the chronicles, memoirs, and remembrances of the making of American literature in the 1920s, Malcolm Cowley's Exile's Return stands alone.  

Far from the "we put on boxing gloves and Ernest Hemingway broke my nose" recollections of that shaping period for a national literature, Cowley's work is "a narrative of ideas," as he subtitled the original edition of his book, published in 1934.  

Save for a handful of anecdotes, the book is not an accumulation of silvered memories, but a meditative exploration of the design and goals of literary culture.


     It is a book written by a young man about a young time, and its extolling of a young generation's ability to cast off the baggage of its forebears and forge its own identity has quickened the hearts of generations of readers who have found resonance in its story.  

It continues to speak.  

Indeed, Exile's Return is not so much about Paris in the 1920s as it is about the exemplary revolt of one generation against its predecessors in the effort to establish itself.

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Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning
And the first thing that I heard
Was a song outside my window
And the traffic wrote the words
It came ringing up like Christmas bells
And rapping up like pipes and drums


Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll wear it 'til the night comes


Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning
And the first thing that I saw
Was the sun through yellow curtains
And a rainbow on the wall
Blue, red, green and gold to welcome you
Crimson crystal beads to beckon

Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
There's a sun show every second


Now the curtain opens on a portrait of today
And the streets are paved with passersby

And pigeons fly --

And papers lie --

Waiting to blow away


Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning
And the first thing that I knew
There was milk and toast and honey 
And a bowl of oranges, too
And the sun poured in like butterscotch
And stuck to all my senses

Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll talk in present tenses


When the curtain closes
And the rainbow runs away
I will bring you incense
Owls by night
By candlelight
By jewel-light
If only you will stay
Pretty baby, won't you
Wake up, it's a Chelsea morning

------------------------ Joni Mitchell

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