Wallace Stevens

My candle burned alone in an immense valley. Beams of the huge night converged upon it, Until the wind blew. Then beams of the huge night Converged upon its image, Until the wind blew.

It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat In the cedar-limbs.

I know noble accents And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too, That the blackbird is involved In what I know.

O thin men of Haddam, Why do you imagine golden birds? Do you not see how the blackbird Walks around the feet Of the women about you?

I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after.

A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman and a blackbird Are one.

Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird.

The essential gaudiness of poetry.

Take from the dresser of deal, Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet On which she embroidered fantails once And spread it so as to cover her face. If her horny feet protrude, they come To show how cold she is, and dumb.

Call the roller of big cigars, The muscular one, and bid him whip In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. Let the wenches dawdle in such dress As they are used to wear, and let the boys Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.

Green crammers of the green fruits of the world.

The plum survives its poems.

The natives of the rain are rainy men.

And as he came he saw that it was spring, A time abhorrent to the nihilist Or searcher for the fecund minimum.

The book of moonlight is not written yet.

She says, "But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss. "Death is the mother of Beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires.

What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams?

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings Of those white elders; but, escaping, Left only Death's ironic scraping. Now, in its immortality, it plays On the clear viol of her memory, And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

Beauty is momentary in the mind — The fitful tracing of a portal; But in the flesh it is immortal. The body dies; the body's beauty lives. So evenings die, in their green going, A wave, interminably flowing. So gardens die, their meek …

A breath upon her hand Muted the night. She turned — A cymbal crashed, Amid roaring horns.

She walked upon the grass, Still quavering. The winds were like her maids, On timid feet, Fetching her woven scarves, Yet wavering.

Upon the bank, she stood In the cool Of spent emotions. She felt, among the leaves, The dew Of old devotions.

In the green water, clear and warm, Susanna lay. She searched The touch of springs, And found Concealed imaginings.