“If the age for being a poet has passed” Lost poetry in Le Temps retrouvé

Just before receiving the revelation of his vocation, the narrator of Le Temps retrouvé formulates a moving farewell to the poetry of his childhood. During his last social morning call, he experiences the passage of time, which sometimes miraculously returns, but which also destroys, leads to death and oblivion. Among these ruins, he looks for the fragments of an eternal beauty and youth which are perhaps the only true poetry, if “the true paradises are the paradises which one lost.”