Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens

Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens

Week 2 | 1/28/16Poet(s) of the Week: Walt Whitman and Emily

DickinsonMajor Poem: The Comedian as the Letter C 22

Domination of Black 7; The Snow Man 8; Le Monocle de Mon Oncle 10; Metaphors of a Magnifico 15; The Doctor of Geneva 19; Another Weeping Woman 19; On the Surface of Things 45; A High Toned Old Christian Woman 47; The Place of the Solitaires 47; The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician 49; The Emperor of Ice Cream 50


Poet(s) of the Week: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) and Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

http://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/vvspot/Whitman.html


Poet(s) of the Week: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Whitman’s “advertisements for myself”

Whitman as the voice of America

Whitman as a gay voice Whitman’s radical subject

matter Whitman as journalist Whitman and “free verse” Whitman and Pound/Eliot,

Williams, Ginsberg

http://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/vvspot/Whitman.html


Poet(s) of the Week: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

“I greet you at the beginning of a great career.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,And what I assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,Nature without check with original energy.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens


2Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much?Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor lookthrough the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)


3I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the endBut I do not talk of the beginning or the end.There was never any more inception than there is now,Nor any more youth or age than there is now,And will never be any more perfection than there is now,Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,Always the procreant urge of the world.Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance andincrease, always sex,Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life.To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so.

Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams,Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,I and this mystery here we stand.



7Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it. I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am not contain'd between my hat and boots,And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good. I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself,(They do not know how immortal, but I know.) Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,For me those that have been boys and that love women,For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the mothers of mothers,For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,For me children and the begetters of children. Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away.



21I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into new tongue. I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.



24 Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding, No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them, No more modest than immodest. Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!



24 I believe in the flesh and the appetites,Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from,The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.

If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body, or any part of it,



32I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd,I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition,They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. So they show their relations to me and I accept them,They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession. I wonder where they get those tokens,Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?



44I am an acme of things accomplish'd, and I an encloser of things to be. My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs,On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps,All below duly travel'd, and still I mount and mount. Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me,Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know I was even there,I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist,And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon. Long I was hugg'd close—long and long. Immense have been the preparations for me,Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me.



44Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen, For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings, They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.

Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me, My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it.

For it the nebula cohered to an orb, The long slow strata piled to rest it on, Vast vegetables gave it sustenance, Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care.

All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight me, Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul.



48I have said that the soul is not more than the body,And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is,And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud,And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times,And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd universe,And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes. And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.)



48I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself. Why should I wish to see God better than this day?I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name,And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go,Others will punctually come for ever and ever.



51Do I contradict myself?Very well then I contradict myself,(I am large, I contain multitudes.)



52The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,Missing me one place search another,I stop somewhere waiting for you.



Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,Out of the Ninth-month midnight,Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot,Down from the shower’d halo,Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,




From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,From the myriad thence-arous’d words,From the word stronger and more delicious than any,From such as now they start the scene revisiting,As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,A reminiscence sing.

Once Paumanok,When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass was growing,Up this seashore in some briers,Two feather’d guests from Alabama, two together,And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown,And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,And every day the she-bird crouch’d on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,




And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them,Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.

Shine! shine! shine!Pour down your warmth, great sun! While we bask, we two together.

Two together!Winds blow south, or winds blow north,Day come white, or niqht come black,Home, or rivers and mountains from home,Singing all time, minding no time,While we two keep together.

Till of a sudden,May-be kill’d, unknown to her mate,One forenoon the she-bird crouch’d not on the nest, Nor return’d that afternoon, nor the next, Nor ever appear’d again.




And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea,And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather,Over the hoarse surging of the sea,Or flitting from brier to brier by day,I saw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird,The solitary guest from Alabama.

Blow! blow! blow!Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok’s shore;I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me.

Yes, when the stars glisten’d,All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop’d stake,Down almost amid the slapping waves,Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears.

He call’d on his mate,He pour’d forth the meanings which I of all men know.Yes my brother I know,




The rest might not, but I have treasur’d every note,For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding,Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows,Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights after their sorts,The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing, I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair, Listen’d long and long.

Listen’d to keep, to sing, now translating the notes, Following you my brother.

Soothe! soothe! soothe!Close on its wave soothes the wave behind,And again another behind embracing and lapping, every one close,But my love soothes not me, not me.




Low hangs the moon, it rose late,It is lagging--O I think it is heavy with love, with love.

O madly the sea pushes upon the land, With love, with love.

O night! do I not see my love fluttering out among the breakers? What is that little black thing I see there in the white?

Loud! loud! loud!Loud I call to you, my love!

Hiqh and clear I shoot my voice over the waves, Surely you must know who is here, is here, You must know who I am, my love.

Low-hanging moon!What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?O it is the shape, the shape of my mate!O moon do not keep her from me any longer.




Land! land! O land!Whichever way I turn, 0 I think you could give me my mate back again if you only would,For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.

O rising stars!Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you.

O throat! 0 trembling throat! Sound clearer through the atmosphere! Pierce the woods, the earth, Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want.

Shake out carols!Solitary here, the niqht’s carols! Carols of lonesome love! death’s carols!Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon!O under that moon where she droops almost down into the sea! O reckless despairing carols.




But soft! sink low! Soft! let me just murmur, And do you wait a moment you husky-nois’d sea,For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me,So faint, I must be still, be still to listen, But not altogether still, for then she miqht not come immediately to me.

Hither my love! Here I am! here!With this just-sustain’d note I announce myself to you, This gentle call is for you my love, for you.

Do not be decoy’d elsewhere,That is the whistle of the wind, it is not my voice,That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray,Those are the shadows of leaves.

O darkness! 0 in vain! 0 I am very sick and sorrowful.O brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon the sea!




O troubled reflection in the sea!O throat! 0 throbbing heart!And I singing uselessly, uselessly all the niqht.

0 past! 0 happy life! 0 songs of joy!In the air, in the woods, over fields,Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!But my mate no more, no more with me!We two together no more.

The aria sinking,All else continuing, the stars shining,The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing,With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,On the sands of Paumanok’s shore gray and rustling,The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of the sea almost touching,The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the atmosphere dallying,




The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously bursting,The aria’s meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing,The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering,The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying,To the boy’s soul’s questions sullenly timing, some drown’d secret hissing,To the outsetting bard.

Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul,)Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me?For I, that was a child, my tongue’s use sleeping, now I have heard you,Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake,And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder and more sorrowful than yours,A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never to die. O you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me,




O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating you,Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations, Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me, Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there in the night,By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon, The messenger there arous’d, the fire, the sweet hell within,The unknown want, the destiny of me.

O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere,) O if I am to have so much, let me have more!

A word then, (for I will conquer it,)The word final, superior to all,Subtle, sent up--what is it?--I listen;Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea- waves?Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?

Whereto answering, the sea, Delaying not, hurrying not, Whisper’d me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak,Lisp’d to me the low and delicious word death, And again death, death, death, death, Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous’d child’s heart,But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet, Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,Death, death, death, death, death.

Which I do not forget, But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother, That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok’s gray beach,With the thousand responsive songs at random, My own songs awaked from that hour,And with them the key, the word up from the waves,The word of the sweetest song and all songs,That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside,)The sea whisper’d me.




O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating you,Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations, Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me, Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there in the night,By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon, The messenger there arous’d, the fire, the sweet hell within,The unknown want, the destiny of me.

O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere,) O if I am to have so much, let me have more!

A word then, (for I will conquer it,)The word final, superior to all,Subtle, sent up--what is it?--I listen;Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea- waves?Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?




Whereto answering, the sea, Delaying not, hurrying not, Whisper’d me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak,Lisp’d to me the low and delicious word death, And again death, death, death, death, Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous’d child’s heart,But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet, Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,Death, death, death, death, death.

Which I do not forget, But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother, That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok’s gray beach,With the thousand responsive songs at random,




My own songs awaked from that hour,And with them the key, the word up from the waves,The word of the sweetest song and all songs,That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside,)The sea whisper’d me.



There was a Child went Forth

THERE was a child went forth every day; And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became; And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles

of years. The early lilacs became part of this child, And grass, and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird, 5And the Third-month lambs, and the sow’s pink-faint litter, and the mare’s foal, and the cow’s calf, And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side, And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there—and the beautiful curious liquid, And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads—all became part of him. The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him; 10Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden, And the apple-trees cover’d with blossoms, and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds

by the road;




THERE was a child went forth every day;

And the old drunkard staggering home from the out-house of the tavern, whence he had lately risen, And the school-mistress that pass’d on her way to the school, And the friendly boys that pass’d—and the quarrelsome boys, 15And the tidy and fresh-cheek’d girls—and the barefoot negro boy and girl, And all the changes of city and country, wherever he went. His own parents, He that had father’d him, and she that had conceiv’d him in her womb, and birth’d him, They gave this child more of themselves than that; 20They gave him afterward every day—they became part of him. The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table; The mother with mild words—clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as

she walks by; The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger’d, unjust; The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure, 25




The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture—the yearning and swelling heart, Affection that will not be gainsay’d—the sense of what is real—the thought if, after all, it should prove unreal, The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time—the curious whether and how, Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks? Men and women crowding fast in the streets—if they are not flashes and specks, what are they? 30The streets themselves, and the façades of houses, and goods in the windows, Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank’d wharves—the huge crossing at the ferries, The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset—the river between, Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown, three miles off, The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide—the little boat slack-tow’d astern, 35The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping, The strata of color’d clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away solitary by itself—the spread of purity it lies motionless in, The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud; These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.



When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.


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Poet(s) of the Week: Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/

http://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/vvspot/Dickinson.html

Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)


Over 1700 poems found

after her death.


Emily Dickinson meets Attila the Hun on Steve Allen’s Meeting of Minds

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

(328)

A Bird came down the Walk—He did not know I saw—He bit an Angleworm in halvesAnd ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a DewFrom a convenient Grass—And then hopped sidewise to the WallTo let a Beetle pass—

He glanced with rapid eyesThat hurried all around—They looked like frightened Beads, I thought—He stirred his Velvet Head

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens

Like one in danger, Cautious,I offered him a CrumbAnd he unrolled his feathersAnd rowed him softer home—

Than Oars divide the Ocean,Too silver for a seam—Or Butterflies, off Banks of NoonLeap, plashless as they swim.

Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936)

Asked if he believed in god, Unamumo once replied: “I do now, but I didn’t ten minutes ago and I might not ten minutes from now.”


43

I like to see it lap the Miles, And lick the valleys up, And stop to feed itself at tanks; And then, prodigious, step Around a pile of mountains, And, supercilious, peer In shanties by the sides of roads; And then a quarry pare To fit its sides, and crawl between, Complaining all the whileIn horrid, hooting stanza; Then chase itself down hill And neigh like Boanerges; Then, punctual as a star, Stop—docile and omnipotent—At its own stable door.


67

Success is counted sweetestBy those who ne'er succeed.To comprehend a nectarRequires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple HostWho took the Flag todayCan tell the definitionSo clear of Victory

As he defeated — dying —On whose forbidden earThe distant strains of triumphBurst agonized and clear!


96

My life closed twice before its close— It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell.


214

I taste a liquor never brewed – From Tankards scooped in Pearl – Not all the Frankfort BerriesYield such an Alcohol!

Inebriate of air – am I – And Debauchee of Dew – Reeling – thro’ endless summer days – From inns of molten Blue –

When “Landlords” turn the drunken BeeOut of the Foxglove’s door – When Butterflies – renounce their “drams” – I shall but drink the more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats – And Saints – to windows run – To see the little TipplerLeaning against the – Sun!


216

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers—Untouched by MorningAnd untouched by Noon—Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection—Rafter of satin,And Roof of stone.

Light laughs the breezeIn her Castle above them—Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear,Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence—Ah, what sagacity perished here!

Version of 1859

Version of 1859

*****

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers—Untouched by MorningAnd untouched by Noon—Lie the meek members of the Resurrection—Rafter of Satin—and Roof of Stone!

Grand go the Years—in the Crescent—above them—Worlds scoop their Arcs—And Firmaments—row—Diadems—drop—and Doges—surrender—Soundless as dots—on a Disc of Snow—

Version of 1861


249

Wild Nights – Wild Nights!Were I with theeWild Nights should beOur luxury!

Futile – the winds –To a heart in port –Done with the compass –Done with the chart!

Rowing in Eden –Ah, the sea!Might I moor – Tonight –In thee!


254

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—That perches in the soul—And sings the tune without the words—And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—And sore must be the storm—That could abash the little BirdThat kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—And on the strangest Sea—Yet, never, in Extremity,It asked a crumb—of Me.


258

There’s a certain Slant of light,Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the HeftOf Cathedral Tunes –

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – We can find no scar,But internal difference,Where the Meanings, are –

None may teach it – Any – ‘Tis the Seal Despair – An imperial afflictionSent us of the Air –

When it comes, the Landscape listens – Shadows – hold their breath – When it goes, ‘tis like the DistanceOn the look of Death –


260

I’m Nobody! Who are you?Are you – Nobody – too?Then there’s a pair of us!Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!How public – like a Frog – To tell one’s name – the livelong June – To an admiring Bog!


280

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,And Mourners to and froKept treading — treading — till it seemedThat Sense was breaking through —And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum —Kept beating — beating — till I thought My mind was going numb —And then I heard them lift a BoxAnd creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space — began to toll,As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear,And I, and Silence, some strange RaceWrecked, solitary, here —And then a Plank in Reason, broke,And I dropped down, and down —And hit a World, at every plunge,And Finished knowing — then —


303

The Soul selects her own Society —Then — shuts the Door —To her divine Majority —Present no more —

Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —At her low Gate —Unmoved — an Emperor be kneelingUpon her Mat —

I’ve known her — from an ample nation —Choose One —Then — close the Valves of her attention —Like Stone —


324

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church —I keep it, staying at Home —With a Bobolink for a Chorister —And an Orchard, for a Dome —

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice —I just wear my Wings —And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,Our little Sexton — sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman —And the sermon is never long,So instead of getting to Heaven, at last —I'm going, all along.


341

After great pain, a formal feeling comes —The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs —The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round —Of Ground, or Air, or Ought —A Wooden wayRegardless grown,A Quartz contentment, like a stone —

This is the Hour of Lead —Remembered, if outlived,As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow —First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go —


465

I heard a Fly buzz – when I died – The Stillness in the RoomWas like the Stillness in the Air – Between the Heaves of Storm –

The Eyes around – had wrung them dry – And Breaths were gathering firmFor that last Onset – when the KingBe witnessed – in the Room –

I willed my Keepsakes – Signed awayWhat portions of me beAssignable – and then it wasThere interposed a Fly –

With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz – Between the light – and me – And then the Windows failed – and thenI could not see to see –


479

Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no hasteAnd I had put awayMy labor and my leisure too,For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children stroveAt Recess – in the Ring – We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed us – The Dews drew quivering and chill – For only Gossamer, my Gown – My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemedA Swelling of the Ground – The Roof was scarcely visible – The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yetFeels shorter than the DayI first surmised the Horses’ Heads Were toward Eternity –


510

It was not Death, for I stood up,And all the Dead, lie down—It was not Night, for all the BellsPut out their Tongues, for Noon.

It was not Frost, for on my FleshI felt Sirocos—crawl—Nor Fire—for just my Marble feetCould keep a Chancel, cool—

And yet, it tasted, like them all,The Figures I have seenSet orderly, for Burial,Reminded me, of mine—

As if my life were shaven, And fitted to a frame,And could not breathe without a key,And ‘twas like Midnight, some—

When everything that ticked—has stopped—And Space stares all around—Or Grisly frosts—first Autumn morns,Repeal the Beating Ground—

But, most, like Chaos—Stopless—cool—Without a Chance, or Spar—Or even a Report of Land—To justify—Despair.


640

I cannot live with You – It would be Life – And Life is over there – Behind the Shelf

The Sexton keeps the Key to – Putting upOur Life – His Porcelain – Like a Cup –

Discarded of the Housewife – Quaint – or Broke – A newer Sevres pleases – Old Ones crack –

I could not die – with You – For One must waitTo shut the Other’s Gaze down – You – could not –

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

And I – could I stand byAnd see You – freeze – Without my Right of Frost – Death’s privilege?

Nor could I rise – with You – Because Your FaceWould put out Jesus’ – That New Grace

Glow plain – and foreignOn my homesick Eye – Except that You than HeShone closer by –

They’d judge Us – How – For You – served Heaven – You know,Or sought to – I could not –

Because You saturated Sight – And I had no more EyesFor sordid excellenceAs Paradise

And were You lost, I would be – Though My NameRang loudestOn the Heavenly fame –

And were You – saved – And I – condemned to beWhere You were not – That self – were Hell to Me –

So We must meet apart – You there – I – here – With just the Door ajarThat Oceans are – and Prayer – And that White Sustenance – Despair –


448

This was a Poet — It is ThatDistills amazing senseFrom ordinary Meanings —And Attar so immense

From the familiar speciesThat perished by the Door —We wonder it was not OurselvesArrested it — before —

Of Pictures, the Discloser —The Poet — it is He —Entitles Us — by Contrast —To ceaseless Poverty —

Of portion — so unconscious —The Robbing — could not harm —Himself — to Him — a Fortune —Exterior — to Time —



Published in 1923—Stevens

was 43.


Domination Of Black (7) At night, by the fire,The colors of the bushesAnd of the fallen leaves,Repeating themselves,Turned in the room,Like the leaves themselvesTurning in the wind.Yes: but the color of the heavy hemlocksCame striding.And I remembered the cry of the peacocks. The colors of their tailsWere like the leaves themselvesTurning in the wind,In the twilight wind.They swept over the room,Just as they flew from the boughs of the hemlocks

March 1916


http://dictionary.reference.com/


Domination Of Black

Down to the ground.I heard them cry — the peacocks.Was it a cry against the twilightOr against the leaves themselvesTurning in the wind,Turning as the flamesTurned in the fire,Turning as the tails of the peacocksTurned in the loud fire,Loud as the hemlocksFull of the cry of the peacocks?Or was it a cry against the hemlocks?




Domination Of Black

Out of the window,I saw how the planets gatheredLike the leaves themselvesTurning in the wind.I saw how the night came,Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocksI felt afraid.And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.




The Snow Man (8) One must have a mind of winterTo regard the frost and the boughsOf the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long timeTo behold the junipers shagged with ice,The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to thinkOf any misery in the sound of the wind,In the sound of a few leaves, Which is the sound of the landFull of the same windThat is blowing in the same bare placeFor the listener, who listens in the snow,And, nothing himself, beholdsNothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

October 1921




Le Monocle de Mon Oncle (10)

I"Mother of heaven, regina of the clouds,O sceptre of the sun, crown of the moon,There is not nothing, no, no, never nothing,Like the clashed edges of two words that kill."And so I mocked her in magnificent measure.Or was it that I mocked myself alone?I wish that I might be a thinking stone.The sea of spuming thought foists up againThe radiant bubble that she was. And thenA deep up-pouring from some saltier wellWithin me, bursts its watery syllable.

December 1918




Le Monocle de Mon Oncle

IIA red bird flies across the golden floor.It is a red bird that seeks out his choirAmong the choirs of wind and wet and wing.A torrent will fall from him when he finds.Shall I uncrumple this much-crumpled thing?I am a man of fortune greeting heirs;For it has come that thus I greet the spring.These choirs of welcome choir for me farewell.No spring can follow past meridian.Yet you persist with anecdotal blissTo make believe a starry connaissance.





IIIIs it for nothing, then, that old ChineseSat tittivating by their mountain poolsOr in the Yangtse studied out their beards?I shall not play the flat historic scale.You know how Utamaro’s beauties soughtThe end of love in their all-speaking braids.You know the mountainous coiffures of Bath.Alas! Have all the barbers lived in vainThat not one curl in nature has survived?Why, without pity on these studious ghosts,Do you come dripping in your hair from sleep?





IVThis luscious and impeccable fruit of lifeFalls, it appears, of its own weight to earth.When you were Eve, its acrid juice was sweet,Untasted, in its heavenly, orchard air.An apple serves as well as any skullTo be the book in which to read a round,And is as excellent, in that it is composedOf what, like skulls, comes rotting back to ground.But it excels in this, that as the fruitOf love, it is a book too mad to readBefore one merely reads to pass the time.





VIn the high west there burns a furious star.It is for fiery boys that star was setAnd for sweet-smelling virgins close to them.The measure of the intensity of loveIs measure, also, of the verve of earth.For me, the firefly’s quick, electric strokeTicks tediously the time of one more year.And you? Remember how the crickets cameOut of their mother grass, like little kin,In the pale nights, when your first imageryFound inklings of your bond to all that dust.





VIIf men at forty will be painting lakesThe ephemeral blues must merge for them in one,The basic slate, the universal hue.There is a substance in us that prevails.But in our amours amorists discernSuch fluctuations that their scriveningIs breathless to attend each quirky turn.When amorists grow bald, then amours shrinkInto the compass and curriculumOf introspective exiles, lecturing.It is a theme for Hyacinth alone.





VIIThe mules that angels ride come slowly downThe blazing passes, from beyond the sun.Descensions of their tinkling bells arrive.These muleteers are dainty of their way.Meantime, centurions guffaw and beatTheir shrilling tankards on the table-boards.This parable, in sense, amounts to this:The honey of heaven may or may not come,But that of earth both comes and goes at once.Suppose these couriers brought amid their trainA damsel heightened by eternal bloom.





VIIILike a dull scholar, I behold, in love,An ancient aspect touching a new mind.It comes, it blooms, it bears its fruit and dies.This trivial trope reveals a way of truth.Our bloom is gone. We are the fruit thereof.Two golden gourds distended on our vines,Into the autumn weather, splashed with frost,Distorted by hale fatness, turned grotesque.We hang like warty squashes, streaked and rayed,The laughing sky will see the two of usWashed into rinds by rotting winter rains.





IXIn verses wild with motion, full of din,Loudened by cries, by clashes, quick and sureAs the deadly thought of men accomplishingTheir curious fates in war, come, celebrateThe faith of forty, ward of Cupido.Most venerable heart, the lustiest conceitIs not too lusty for your broadening.I quiz all sounds, all thoughts, all everythingFor the music and manner of the paladinsTo make oblation fit. Where shall I findBravura adequate to this great hymn?





XThe fops of fancy in their poems leaveMemorabilia of the mystic spouts,Spontaneously watering their gritty soils.I am a yeoman, as such fellows go.I know no magic trees, no balmy boughs,No silver-ruddy, gold-vermilion fruits.But, after all, I know a tree that bearsA semblance to the thing I have in mind.It stands gigantic, with a certain tipTo which all birds come sometime in their time.But when they go that tip still tips the tree.





XIIf sex were all, then every trembling handCould make us squeak, like dolls, the wished-for words.But note the unconscionable treachery of fate,That makes us weep, laugh, grunt and groan, and shoutDoleful heroics, pinching gestures forthFrom madness or delight, without regardTo that first, foremost law. Anguishing hour!Last night, we sat beside a pool of pink,Clippered with lilies scudding the bright chromes,Keen to the point of starlight, while a frogBoomed from his very belly odious chords.





XIIA blue pigeon it is, that circles the blue sky,On sidelong wing, around and round and round.A white pigeon it is, that flutters to the ground,Grown tired of flight. Like a dark rabbi, IObserved, when young, the nature of mankind,In lordly study. Every day, I foundMan proved a gobbet in my mincing world.Like a rose rabbi, later, I pursued,And still pursue, the origin and courseOf love, but until now I never knewThat fluttering things have so distinct a shade.




Metaphors of a Magnifico (15) Twenty men crossing a bridge,Into a village,Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges,Into twenty villages,Or one manCrossing a single bridge into a village. This is old songThat will not declare itself . . . Twenty men crossing a bridge,Into a village,AreTwenty men crossing a bridgeInto a village. That will not declare itselfYet is certain as meaning . . .

June 1918




Metaphors of a Magnifico The boots of the men clumpOn the boards of the bridge.The first white wall of the villageRises through fruit-trees.Of what was it I was thinking?So the meaning escapes. The first white wall of the village...The fruit-trees . . .




The Doctor of Geneva (19) The doctor of Geneva stamped the sandThat lay impounding the Pacific swell,Patted his stove-pipe hat and tugged his shawl.Lacustrine man had never been assailedBy such long-rolling opulent cataracts,Unless Racine or Bossuet held the like.He did not quail. A man who used to plumbThe multifarious heavens felt no aweBefore these visible, voluble delugings,Which yet found means to set his simmering mindSpinning and hissing with oracularNotations of the wild, the ruinous waste,Until the steeples of his city clanked and sprangIn an unburgherly apocalypse.The doctor used his handkerchief and sighed.




Another Weeping Woman (19)

Pour the unhappiness outFrom your too bitter heart,Which grieving will not sweeten. Poison grows in this dark.It is in the water of tearsIts black blooms rise. The magnificent cause of being,The imagination, the one realityIn this imagined world Leaves youWith him for whom no phantasy moves,And you are pierced by a death.




Of the Surface of Things (45)IIn my room, the world is beyond my understanding;But when I walk I see that it consists of three or four hills and a cloud. IIFrom my balcony, I survey the yellow air,Reading where I have written,"The spring is like a belle undressing." IIIThe gold tree is blue,The singer has pulled his cloak over his head.The moon is in the folds of the cloak.




A High Toned Old Christian Woman (47)

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.Take the moral law and make a nave of itAnd from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,The conscience is converted into palms,Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.We agree in principle. That's clear. But takeThe opposing law and make a peristyle,And from the peristyle project a masqueBeyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,Is equally converted into palms,Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,Madame, we are where we began. Allow,Therefore, that in the planetary sceneYour disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,Proud of such novelties of the sublime,

July 1922




A High Toned Old Christian Woman

Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,May, merely may, madame, whip from themselvesA jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.This will make widows wince. But fictive thingsWink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.




The Place Of The Solitaires (47) Let the place of the solitairesBe a place of perpetual undulation. Whether it be in mid-seaOn the dark, green water-wheel,Or on the beaches,There must be no cessationOf motion, or of the noise of motion,The renewal of noiseAnd manifold continuation; And, most, of the motion of thoughtAnd its restless iteration, In the place of the solitaires,Which is to be a place of perpetual undulation.




The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician (49) It comes about that the drifting of these curtainsIs full of long motions; as the ponderousDeflations of distance; or as cloudsInseparable from their afternoons;Or the changing of light, the droppingOf the silence, wide sleep and solitudeOf night, in which all motionIs beyond us, as the firmament,Up-rising and down-falling, baresThe last largeness, bold to see.




The Emperor Of Ice-Cream (50) Call the roller of big cigars,The muscular one, and bid him whipIn kitchen cups concupiscent curds.Let the wenches dawdle in such dressAs they are used to wear, and let the boysBring flowers in last month's newspapers.Let be be finale of seem.The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. Take from the dresser of deal.Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheetOn which she embroidered fantails onceAnd spread it so as to cover her face.If her horny feet protrude, they comeTo show how cold she is, and dumb.Let the lamp affix its beam.The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

July 1922




Major Poem: The Comedian as the Letter (22)

IThe World without Imagination

Nota: man is the intelligence of his soil,The sovereign ghost. As such, the SocratesOf snails, musician of pears, principiumAnd lex. Sed quaeritur: is this same wigOf things, this nincompated pedagogue,Preceptor to the sea? Crispin at seaCreated, in his day, a touch of doubt.An eye most apt in gelatines and jupes,Berries of villages, a barber's eye,An eye of land, of simple salad-beds,Of honest quilts, the eye of Crispin, hungOn porpoises, instead of apricots,And on silentious porpoises, whose snoutsDibbled in waves that were mustachios,Inscrutable hair in an inscrutable world.

Click on the image above to see a definition.

1921-22


http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/tech/mockepic.html


Major American Writers: Wallace

Stevens

The Comedian as the Letter C

One eats one paté, even of salt, quotha.It was not so much the lost terrestrial,The snug hibernal from that sea and salt,That century of wind in a single puff.What counted was mythology of self,Blotched out beyond unblotching. Crispin,The lutanist of fleas, the knave, the thane,The ribboned stick, the bellowing breeches, cloakOf China, cap of Spain, imperative hawOf hum, inquisitorial botanist,And general lexicographer of muteAnd maidenly greenhorns, now beheld himself,A skinny sailor peering in the sea-glass.What word split up in clickering syllablesAnd storming under multitudinous tonesWas name for this short-shanks in all that brunt?Crispin was washed away by magnitude.The whole of life that still remained in himDwindled to one sound strumming in his ear,Ubiquitous concussion, slap and sigh,Polyphony beyond his baton's thrust.





Could Crispin stem verboseness in the sea,The old age of a watery realist,Triton, dissolved in shifting diaphanesOf blue and green? A wordy, watery ageThat whispered to the sun's compassion, madeA convocation, nightly, of the sea-stars,And on the cropping foot-ways of the moonLay grovelling. Triton incomplicate with thatWhich made him Triton, nothing left of him,Except in faint, memorial gesturings,That were like arms and shoulders in the waves,Here, something in the rise and fall of windThat seemed hallucinating horn, and here,A sunken voice, both of rememberingAnd of forgetfulness, in alternate strain.Just so an ancient Crispin was dissolved.The valet in the tempest was annulled.Bordeaux to Yucatan, Havana next,And then to Carolina. Simple jaunt.





Crispin, merest minuscule in the gates,Dejected his manner to the turbulence.The salt hung on his spirit like a frost,The dead brine melted in him like a dewOf winter, until nothing of himselfRemained, except some starker, barer selfIn a starker, barer world, in which the sunWas not the sun because it never shoneWith bland complaisance on pale parasols,Beetled, in chapels, on the chaste bouquets.Against his pipping sounds a trumpet criedCelestial sneering boisterously. CrispinBecame an introspective voyager.

Here was the veritable ding an sich, at last,Crispin confronting it, a vocable thing,But with a speech belched out of hoary darksNoway resembling his, a visible thing,And excepting negligible Triton, free





From the unavoidable shadow of himselfThat lay elsewhere around him. SeveranceWas clear. The last distortion of romanceForsook the insatiable egotist. The seaSevers not only lands but also selves.Here was no help before reality.Crispin beheld and Crispin was made new.The imagination, here, could not evade,In poems of plums, the strict austerityOf one vast, subjugating, final tone.The drenching of stale lives no more fell down.What was this gaudy, gusty panoply?Out of what swift destruction did it spring?It was caparison of mind and cloudAnd something given to make whole amongThe ruses that were shattered by the large.





IIConcerning the Thunderstorms of YucatanIn Yucatan, the Maya sonneteersOf the Caribbean amphitheatre,In spite of hawk and falcon, green toucanAnd jay, still to the night-bird made their plea,As if raspberry tanagers in palms,High up in orange air, were barbarous.But Crispin was too destitute to findIn any commonplace the sought-for aid.He was a man made vivid by the sea,A man come out of luminous traversing,Much trumpeted, made desperately clear,Fresh from discoveries of tidal skies,To whom oracular rockings gave no rest.Into a savage color he went on.





How greatly had he grown in his demesne,This auditor of insects! He that sawThe stride of vanishing autumn in a parkBy way of decorous melancholy; heThat wrote his couplet yearly to the spring,As dissertation of profound delight,Stopping, on voyage, in a land of snakes,Found his vicissitudes had much enlargedHis apprehension, made him intricateIn moody rucks, and difficult and strangeIn all desires, his destitution's mark.He was in this as other freemen are,Sonorous nutshells rattling inwardly.His violence was for aggrandizementAnd not for stupor, such as music makesFor sleepers halfway waking. He perceivedThat coolness for his heat came suddenly,And only, in the fables that he scrawled





With his own quill, in its indigenous dew,Of an aesthetic tough, diverse, untamed,Incredible to prudes, the mint of dirt,Green barbarism turning paradigm.Crispin foresaw a curious promenadeOr, nobler, sensed an elemental fate,And elemental potencies and pangs,And beautiful barenesses as yet unseen,Making the most of savagery of palms,Of moonlight on the thick, cadaverous bloomThat yuccas breed, and of the panther's tread.The fabulous and its intrinsic verseCame like two spirits parlaying, adornedIn radiance from the Atlantic coign,For Crispin and his quill to catechize.But they came parlaying of such an earth,So thick with sides and jagged lops of green,So intertwined with serpent-kin encoiled





Among the purple tufts, the scarlet crowns,Scenting the jungle in their refuges,So streaked with yellow, blue and green and redIn beak and bud and fruity gobbet-skins,That earth was like a jostling festivalOf seeds grown fat, too juicily opulent,Expanding in the gold's maternal warmth.So much for that. The affectionate emigrant foundA new reality in parrot-squawks.Yet let that trifle pass. Now, as this oddDiscoverer walked through the harbor streetsInspecting the cabildo, the façadeOf the cathedral, making notes, he heardA rumbling, west of Mexico, it seemed,Approaching like a gasconade of drums.The white cabildo darkened, the façade,As sullen as the sky, was swallowed upIn swift, successive shadows, dolefully.





The rumbling broadened as it fell. The wind,Tempestuous clarion, with heavy cry,Came bluntly thundering, more terribleThan the revenge of music on bassoons.Gesticulating lightning, mystical,Made pallid flitter. Crispin, here, took flight.An annotator has his scruples, too.He knelt in the cathedral with the rest,This connoisseur of elemental fate,Aware of exquisite thought. The storm was oneOf many proclamations of the kind,Proclaiming something harsher than he learnedFrom hearing signboards whimper in cold nightsOr seeing the midsummer artificeOf heat upon his pane. This was the spanOf force, the quintessential fact, the noteOf Vulcan, that a valet seeks to own,The thing that makes him envious in phrase.





And while the torrent on the roof still dronedHe felt the Andean breath. His mind was freeAnd more than free, elate, intent, profoundAnd studious of a self possessing him,That was not in him in the crusty townFrom which he sailed. Beyond him, westward, layThe mountainous ridges, purple balustrades,In which the thunder, lapsing in its clap,Let down gigantic quavers of its voice,For Crispin to vociferate again.





IIIApproaching CarolinaThe book of moonlight is not written yetNor half begun, but, when it is, leave roomFor Crispin, fagot in the lunar fire,Who, in the hubbub of his pilgrimageThrough sweating changes, never could forgetThat wakefulness or meditating sleep,In which the sulky strophes willinglyBore up, in time, the somnolent, deep songs.Leave room, therefore, in that unwritten bookFor the legendary moonlight that once burnedIn Crispin's mind above a continent.America was always north to him,A northern west or western north, but north,And thereby polar, polar-purple, chilledAnd lank, rising and slumping from a seaOf hardy foam, receding flatly, spread





In endless ledges, glittering, submergedAnd cold in a boreal mistiness of the moon.The spring came there in clinking panniclesOf half-dissolving frost, the summer came,If ever, whisked and wet, not ripening,Before the winter's vacancy returned.The myrtle, if the myrtle ever bloomed,Was like a glacial pink upon the air.The green palmettoes in crepuscular iceClipped frigidly blue-black meridians,Morose chiaroscuro, gauntly drawn.

How many poems he denied himselfIn his observant progress, lesser thingsThan the relentless contact he desired;How many sea-masks he ignored; what soundsHe shut out from his tempering ear; what thoughts,Like jades affecting the sequestered bride;And what descants, he sent to banishment!





Perhaps the Arctic moonlight really gaveThe liaison, the blissful liaison,Between himself and his environment,Which was, and is, chief motive, first delight,For him, and not for him alone. It seemedElusive, faint, more mist than moon, perverse,Wrong as a divagation to Peking,To him that postulated as his themeThe vulgar, as his theme and hymn and flight,A passionately niggling nightingale.Moonlight was an evasion, or, if not,A minor meeting, facile, delicate.

Thus he conceived his voyaging to beAn up and down between two elements,A fluctuating between sun and moon,A sally into gold and crimson forms,As on this voyage, out of goblinry,And then retirement like a turning back





And sinking down to the indulgencesThat in the moonlight have their habitude.But let these backward lapses, if they would,Grind their seductions on him, Crispin knewIt was a flourishing tropic he requiredFor his refreshment, an abundant zone,Prickly and obdurate, dense, harmoniousYet with a harmony not rarefiedNor fined for the inhibited instrumentsOf over-civil stops. And thus he tossedBetween a Carolina of old time,A little juvenile, an ancient whim,And the visible, circumspect presentment drawnFrom what he saw across his vessel's prow.

He came. The poetic hero without palmsOr jugglery, without regalia.And as he came he saw that it was spring,A time abhorrent to the nihilist





Or searcher for the fecund minimum.The moonlight fiction disappeared. The spring,Although contending featly in its veils,Irised in dew and early fragrancies,Was gemmy marionette to him that soughtA sinewy nakedness. A river boreThe vessel inward. Tilting up his nose,He inhaled the rancid rosin, burly smellsOf dampened lumber, emanations blownFrom warehouse doors, the gustiness of ropes,Decays of sacks, and all the arrant stinksThat helped him round his rude aesthetic out.He savored rankness like a sensualist.He marked the marshy ground around the dock,The crawling railroad spur, the rotten fence,Curriculum for the marvellous sophomore.It purified. It made him see how muchOf what he saw he never saw at all.





He gripped more closely the essential proseAs being, in a world so falsified,The one integrity for him, the oneDiscovery still possible to make,To which all poems were incident, unlessThat prose should wear a poem's guise at last.





IVThe Idea of a ColonyNota: his soil is man's intelligence.That's better. That's worth crossing seas to find.Crispin in one laconic phrase laid bareHis cloudy drift and planned a colony.Exit the mental moonlight, exit lex,Rex and principium, exit the wholeShebang. Exeunt omnes. Here was proseMore exquisite than any tumbling verse:A still new continent in which to dwell.What was the purpose of his pilgrimage,Whatever shape it took in Crispin's mind,If not, when all is said, to drive awayThe shadow of his fellows from the skies,And, from their stale intelligence released,To make a new intelligence prevail?





Hence the reverberations in the wordsOf his first central hymns, the celebrantsOf rankest trivia, tests of the strengthOf his aesthetic, his philosophy,The more invidious, the more desired.The florist asking aid from cabbages,The rich man going bare, the paladinAfraid, the blind man as astronomer,The appointed power unwielded from disdain.

His western voyage ended and began.The torment of fastidious thought grew slack,Another, still more bellicose, came on.He, therefore, wrote his prolegomena,And, being full of the caprice, inscribedCommingled souvenirs and prophecies.He made a singular collation. Thus:The natives of the rain are rainy men.Although they paint effulgent, azure lakes,





And April hillsides wooded white and pink,Their azure has a cloudy edge, their whiteAnd pink, the water bright that dogwood bears.And in their music showering sounds intone.On what strange froth does the gross Indian dote,What Eden sapling gum, what honeyed gore,What pulpy dram distilled of innocence,That streaking gold should speak in himOr bask within his images and words?If these rude instances impeach themselvesBy force of rudeness, let the principleBe plain. For application Crispin strove,Abhorring Turk as Esquimau, the luteAs the marimba, the magnolia as rose.

Upon these premises propounding, heProjected a colony that should extendTo the dusk of a whistling south below the south.A comprehensive island hemisphere.





The man in Georgia waking among pinesShould be pine-spokesman. The responsive man,Planting his pristine cores in Florida,Should prick thereof, not on the psaltery,But on the banjo's categorical gut,Tuck tuck, while the flamingos flapped his bays.Sepulchral señors, bibbing pale mescal,Oblivious to the Aztec almanacs,Should make the intricate Sierra scan.And dark Brazilians in their cafés,Musing immaculate, pampean dits,Should scrawl a vigilant anthology,To be their latest, lucent paramour.These are the broadest instances. Crispin,Progenitor of such extensive scope,Was not indifferent to smart detail.The melon should have apposite ritual,Performed in verd apparel, and the peach,





When its black branches came to bud, belle day,Should have an incantation. And again,When piled on salvers its aroma steepedThe summer, it should have a sacramentAnd celebration. Shrewd novitiatesShould be the clerks of our experience.

These bland excursions into time to come,Related in romance to backward flights,However prodigal, however proud,Contained in their afflatus the reproachThat first drove Crispin to his wandering.He could not be content with counterfeit,With masquerade of thought, with hapless wordsThat must belie the racking masquerade,With fictive flourishes that preordainedHis passion's permit, hang of coat, degreeOf buttons, measure of his salt. Such trash





Might help the blind, not him, serenely sly.It irked beyond his patience. Hence it was,Preferring text to gloss, he humbly servedGrotesque apprenticeship to chance event,A clown, perhaps, but an aspiring clown.There is a monotonous babbling in our dreamsThat makes them our dependent heirs, the heirsOf dreamers buried in our sleep, and notThe oncoming fantasies of better birth.The apprentice knew these dreamers. If he dreamedTheir dreams, he did it in a gingerly way.All dreams are vexing. Let them be expunged.But let the rabbit run, the cock declaim.

Trinket pasticcio, flaunting skyey sheets,With Crispin as the tiptoe cozener?No, no: veracious page on page, exact.





VA Nice Shady HomeCrispin as hermit, pure and capable,Dwelt in the land. Perhaps if discontentHad kept him still the pricking realist,Choosing his element from droll confectOf was and is and shall or ought to be,Beyond Bordeaux, beyond Havana, farBeyond carked Yucatan, he might have comeTo colonize his polar planterdomAnd jig his chits upon a cloudy knee.But his emprize to that idea soon sped.Crispin dwelt in the land and dwelling thereSlid from his continent by slow recessTo things within his actual eye, alertTo the difficulty of rebellious thoughtWhen the sky is blue. The blue infected will.



Major American Writers: Wallace

StevensThe Comedian as the Letter C

It may be that the yarrow in his fieldsSealed pensive purple under its concern.But day by day, now this thing and now thatConfined him, while it cosseted, condoned,Little by little, as if the suzerain soilAbashed him by carouse to humble yetAttach. It seemed haphazard denouement.He first, as realist, admitted thatWhoever hunts a matinal continentMay, after all, stop short before a plumAnd be content and still be realist.The words of things entangle and confuse.The plum survives its poems. It may hangIn the sunshine placidly, colored by groundObliquities of those who pass beneath,Harlequined and mazily dewed and mauvedIn bloom. Yet it survives in its own form,Beyond these changes, good, fat, guzzly fruit.So Crispin hasped on the surviving form,For him, of shall or ought to be in is.





Was he to bray this in profoundest brassArointing his dreams with fugal requiems?Was he to company vastest things defunctWith a blubber of tom-toms harrowing the sky?Scrawl a tragedian's testament? ProlongHis active force in an inactive dirge,Which, let the tall musicians call and call,Should merely call him dead? Pronounce amenThrough choirs infolded to the outmost clouds?Because he built a cabin who once plannedLoquacious columns by the ructive sea?Because he turned to salad-beds again?Jovial Crispin, in calamitous crape?Should he lay by the personal and makeOf his own fate an instance of all fate?What is one man among so many men?What are so many men in such a world?





Can one man think one thing and think it long?Can one man be one thing and be it long?The very man despising honest quiltsLies quilted to his poll in his despite.For realists, what is is what should be.And so it came, his cabin shuffled up,His trees were planted, his duenna broughtHer prismy blonde and clapped her in his hands,The curtains flittered and the door was closed.Crispin, magister of a single room,Latched up the night. So deep a sound fell downIt was as if the solitude concealedAnd covered him and his congenial sleep.So deep a sound fell down it grew to beA long soothsaying silence down and down.The crickets beat their tambours in the wind,Marching a motionless march, custodians.





In the presto of the morning, Crispin trod,Each day, still curious, but in a roundLess prickly and much more condign than thatHe once thought necessary. Like Candide,Yeoman and grub, but with a fig in sight,And cream for the fig and silver for the cream,A blonde to tip the silver and to tasteThe rapey gouts. Good star, how that to beAnnealed them in their cabin ribaldries!Yet the quotidian saps philosophersAnd men like Crispin like them in intent,If not in will, to track the knaves of thought.





But the quotidian composed as his,Of breakfast ribands, fruits laid in their leaves,The tomtit and the cassia and the rose,Although the rose was not the noble thornOf crinoline spread, but of a pining sweet,Composed of evenings like cracked shutters flungUpon the rumpling bottomness, and nightsIn which those frail custodians watched,Indifferent to the tepid summer cold,While he poured out upon the lips of herThat lay beside him, the quotidianLike this, saps like the sun, true fortuner.For all it takes it gives a humped returnExchequering from piebald fiscs unkeyed.





VIAnd Daughters with CurlsPortentous enunciation, syllableTo blessed syllable affined, and soundBubbling felicity in cantilene,Prolific and tormenting tendernessOf music, as it comes to unison,Forgather and bell boldly Crispin's lastDeduction. Thrum, with a proud douceurHis grand pronunciamento and devise.





The chits came for his jigging, bluet-eyed,Hands without touch yet touching poignantly,Leaving no room upon his cloudy knee,Prophetic joint, for its diviner young.The return to social nature, once begun,Anabasis or slump, ascent or chute,Involved him in midwifery so denseHis cabin counted as phylactery,Then place of vexing palankeens, then hauntOf children nibbling at the sugared void,Infants yet eminently old, then domeAnd halidom for the unbraided femes,Green crammers of the green fruits of the world,Bidders and biders for its ecstasies,True daughters both of Crispin and his clay.All this with many mulctings of the man,Effective colonizer sharply stoppedIn the door-yard by his own capacious bloom.





But that this bloom grown riper, showing nibsOf its eventual roundness, puerile tintsOf spiced and weathery rouges, should complexThe stopper to indulgent fatalistWas unforeseen. First Crispin smiled uponHis goldenest demoiselle, inhabitant,She seemed, of a country of the capuchins,So delicately blushed, so humbly eyed,Attentive to a coronal of thingsSecret and singular. Second, uponA second similar counterpart, a maidMost sisterly to the first, not yet awakeExcepting to the motherly footstep, butMarvelling sometimes at the shaken sleep.Then third, a thing still flaxen in the light,A creeper under jaunty leaves. And fourth,Mere blusteriness that gewgaws jollified,All din and gobble, blasphemously pink.





A few years more and the vermeil capuchinGave to the cabin, lordlier than it was,The dulcet omen fit for such a house.The second sister dallying was shyTo fetch the one full-pinioned one himselfOut of her botches, hot embosomer.The third one gaping at the oriolesLettered herself demurely as becameA pearly poetess, peaked for rhapsody.The fourth, pent now, a digit curious.Four daughters in a world too intricateIn the beginning, four blithe instrumentsOf differing struts, four voices severalIn couch, four more personæ, intimateAs buffo, yet divers, four mirrors blueThat should be silver, four accustomed seedsHinting incredible hues, four self-same lightsThat spread chromatics in hilarious dark,Four questioners and four sure answerers.





Crispin concocted doctrine from the rout.The world, a turnip once so readily plucked,Sacked up and carried overseas, daubed outOf its ancient purple, pruned to the fertile main,And sown again by the stiffest realist,Came reproduced in purple, family font,The same insoluble lump. The fatalistStepped in and dropped the chuckling down his craw,Without grace or grumble. Score this anecdoteInvented for its pith, not doctrinalIn form though in design, as Crispin willed,Disguised pronunciamento, summary,Autumn's compendium, strident in itselfBut muted, mused, and perfectly revolvedIn those portentous accents, syllables,And sounds of music coming to accordUpon his law, like their inherent sphere,





Seraphic proclamations of the pureDelivered with a deluging onwardness.Or if the music sticks, if the anecdoteIs false, if Crispin is a profitlessPhilosopher, beginning with green brag,Concluding fadedly, if as a manProne to distemper he abates in taste,Fickle and fumbling, variable, obscure,Glozing his life with after-shining flicks,Illuminating, from a fancy gorgedBy apparition, plain and common things,Sequestering the fluster from the year,Making gulped potions from obstreperous drops,And so distorting, proving what he provesIs nothing, what can all this matter sinceThe relation comes, benignly, to its end?

So may the relation of each man be clipped.



Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens

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