The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens

by Wallace Stevens

  So much just to be seen—a purpose, empty

  Perhaps, absurd perhaps, but at least a purpose,

  Certain and ever more fresh. Ah! Certain, for sure…

  THE PLANET ON THE TABLE

  Ariel was glad he had written his poems.

  They were of a remembered time

  Or of something seen that he liked.

  Other makings of the sun

  Were waste and welter

  And the ripe shrub writhed.

  His self and the sun were one

  And his poems, although makings of his self,

  Were no less makings of the sun.

  It was not important that they survive.

  What mattered was that they should bear

  Some lineament or character,

  Some affluence, if only half-perceived,

  In the poverty of their words,

  Of the planet of which they were part.

  THE RIVER OF RIVERS IN CONNECTICUT

  There is a great river this side of Stygia,

  Before one comes to the first black cataracts

  And trees that lack the intelligence of trees.

  In that river, far this side of Stygia,

  The mere flowing of the water is a gayety,

  Flashing and flashing in the sun. On its banks,

  No shadow walks. The river is fateful,

  Like the last one. But there is no ferryman.

  He could not bend against its propelling force.

  It is not to be seen beneath the appearances

  That tell of it. The steeple at Farmington

  Stands glistening and Haddam shines and sways.

  It is the third commonness with light and air,

  A curriculum, a vigor, a local abstraction…

  Call it, once more, a river, an unnamed flowing,

  Space-filled, reflecting the seasons, the folk-lore

  Of each of the senses; call it, again and again,

  The river that flows nowhere, like a sea.

  NOT IDEAS ABOUT THE THING BUT THE THING ITSELF

  At the earliest ending of winter,

  In March, a scrawny cry from outside

  Seemed like a sound in his mind.

  He knew that he heard it,

  A bird’s cry, at daylight or before,

  In the early March wind.

  The sun was rising at six,

  No longer a battered panache above snow…

  It would have been outside.

  It was not from the vast ventriloquism

  Of sleep’s faded papier-mâché…

  The sun was coming from outside.

  That scrawny cry—it was

  A chorister whose c preceded the choir.

  It was part of the colossal sun,

  Surrounded by its choral rings,

  Still far away. It was like

  A new knowledge of reality.

  INDEX OF TITLES OF POEMS

  Academic Discourse at Havana

  Add This to Rhetoric

  Adult Epigram

  American Sublime, The

  Analysis of a Theme

  Anatomy of Monotony

  Anecdote of Canna

  Anecdote of Men by the Thousand

  Anecdote of the Jar

  Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks

  Angel Surrounded by Paysans

  Anglais Mort à Florence

  Another Weeping Woman

  Anything Is Beautiful if You Say It Is

  Apostrophe to Vincentine, The

  Arcades of Philadelphia the Past

  Arrival at the Waldorf

  Asides on the Oboe

  Attempt to Discover Life

  Auroras of Autumn, The

  Autumn Refrain

  Bagatelles the Madrigals, The

  Banal Sojourn

  Bantams in Pine-Woods

  Bed of Old John Zeller, The

  Beginning, The

  Bird with the Coppery, Keen Claws, The

  Blue Buildings in the Summer Air, The

  Botanist on Alp (No. 1)

  Botanist on Alp (No. 2)

  Bouquet, The

  Bouquet of Belle Scavoir

  Bouquet of Roses in Sunlight

  Brave Man, The

  Burghers of Petty Death

  Candle a Saint, The

  Celle Qui Fût Héaulmiette

  Certain Phenomena of Sound

  Chaos in Motion and Not in Motion

  Chocorua to Its Neighbor

  Colloquy with a Polish Aunt

  Comedian as the Letter C, The

  Common Life, The

  Completely New Set of Objects

  Connoisseur of Chaos

  Continual Conversation with a Silent Man

  Contrary Theses (I)

  Contrary Theses (II)

  Cortège for Rosenbloom

  Country Words

  Countryman, The

  Creations of Sound, The

  Credences of Summer

  Crude Foyer

  Cuban Doctor, The

  Cuisine Bourgeoise

  Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician, The

  Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et Les Unze Mille Vierges

  Dance of the Macabre Mice

  Death of a Soldier, The

  Debris of Life and Mind

  Delightful Evening

  Depression before Spring

  Description without Place

  Dezembrum

  Dish of Peaches in Russia, A

  Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock

  Doctor of Geneva, The

  Domination of Black

  Dove in the Belly, The

  Dry Loaf

  Dutch Graves in Bucks County

  Dwarf, The

  Earthy Anecdote

  Emperor of Ice-Cream, The

  Esthétique du Mal

  Evening without Angels

  Examination of the Hero in a Time of War

  Explanation

  Extracts from Addresses to the Academy of Fine Ideas

  Extraordinary References

  Fabliau of Florida

  Fading of the Sun, A

  Farewell to Florida

  Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour

  Fish-Scale Sunrise, A

  Floral Decorations for Bananas

  Flyer’s Fall

  Forces, the Will & the Weather

  Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs

  From the Misery of Don Joost

  From the Packet of Anarcharsis

  Gallant Château

  Ghosts as Cocoons

  Gigantomachia

  Girl in a Nightgown

  Glass of Water, The

  God Is Good. It Is a Beautiful Night

  Golden Woman in a Silver Mirror, A

  Good Man Has No Shape, The

  Gray Stones and Gray Pigeons

  Green Plant, The

  Gubbinal

  Hand as a Being, The

  Hermitage at the Centre, The

  Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores

  High-Toned Old Christian Woman, A

  Holiday in Reality

  Homunculus et La Belle Étoile

  House Was Quiet and the World

  Was Calm, The

  How to Live. What to Do

  Human Arrangement

  Hymn from a Watermelon Pavilion

  Idea of Order at Key West, The

  Idiom of the Hero

  Imago

  In a Bad Time

  In the Carolinas

  In the Clear Season of Grapes

  In the Element of Antagonisms

  Indian River

  Infanta Marina

  Invective against Swans

  Irish Cliffs of Moher, The

  Jack-Rabbit, The

  Jasmine’s Beautiful Thoughts underneath the Willow

  Jouga

  Jumbo

  Lack of Repose, The

  Landscape with Boat
/>   Large Red Man Reading

  Last Looks at the Lilacs

  Late Hymn from the Myrrh-Mountain

  Latest Freed Man, The

  Lebensweisheitspielerei

  Less and Less Human, O Savage Spirit

  Life Is Motion

  Like Decorations in a Nigger Cemetery

  Lions in Sweden

  Load of Sugar-Cane, The

  Loneliness in Jersey City

  Long and Sluggish Lines

  Looking across the Fields and Watching the Birds Fly

  Lot of People Bathing in a Stream, A

  Lunar Paraphrase

  Madame La Fleurie

  Man and Bottle

  Man Carrying Thing

  Man on the Dump, The

  Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad

  Man with the Blue Guitar, The

  Martial Cadenza

  Meditation Celestial & Terrestrial

  Men Made out of Words

  Men That are Falling, The

  Metamorphosis

  Metaphor as Degeneration

  Metaphors of a Magnifico

  Monocle de Mon Oncle, Le

  Montrachet-le-Jardin

  Motive for Metaphor, The

  Mountains Covered with Cats

  Mozart, 1935

  Mrs. Alfred Uruguay

  Mud Master

  Negation

  New England Verses

  News and the Weather, The

  No Possum, No Sop, No Taters

  Nomad Exquisite

  Not Ideas about the Thing but the Thing Itself

  Note on Moonlight

  Notes toward a Supreme Fiction

  Novel, The

  Nuances of a Theme by Williams

  Nudity at the Capital

  Nudity in the Colonies

  O Florida, Venereal Soil

  Oak Leaves Are Hands

  Of Bright & Blue Birds & the Gala Sun

  Of Hartford in a Purple Light

  Of Heaven Considered as a Tomb

  Of Modern Poetry

  Of the Surface of Things

  Old Lutheran Bells at Home, The

  Old Man Asleep, An

  On an Old Horn

  On the Adequacy of Landscape

  On the Manner of Addressing Clouds

  On the Road Home

  One of the Inhabitants of the West

  Ordinary Evening in New Haven, An

  Ordinary Women, The

  Our Stars Come from Ireland

  Owl in the Sarcophagus, The

  Page from a Tale

  Paisant Chronicle

  Palace of the Babies

  Paltry Nude Starts on a Spring Voyage, The

  Parochial Theme

  Pastor Caballero, The

  Pastoral Nun, A

  Pediment of Appearance, The

  Peter Quince at the Clavier

  Phosphor Reading by His Own Light

  Pieces

  Place of the Solitaires, The

  Plain Sense of Things, The

  Planet on the Table, The

  Pleasures of Merely Circulating, The

  Plot against the Giant, The

  Ploughing on Sunday

  Plus Belles Pages, Les

  Poem that Took the Place of a Mountain, The

  Poem with Rhythms

  Poem Written at Morning

  Poems of Our Climate, The

  Poesie Abrutie

  Poetry Is a Destructive Force

  Postcard from the Volcano, A

  Prejudice against the Past, The

  Prelude to Objects

  Primitive Like an Orb, A

  Prologues to What Is Possible

  Public Square, The

  Puella Parvula

  Pure Good of Theory, The

  Questions Are Remarks

  Quiet Normal Life, A

  Rabbit as King of the Ghosts, A

  Reader, The

  Red Fern, The

  Repetitions of a Young Captain

  Reply to Papini

  Re-statement of Romance

  Revolutionists Stop for Orangeade, The

  River of Rivers in Connecticut, The

  Rock, The

  Sad Strains of a Gay Waltz

  Sailing after Lunch

  St. Armorer’s Church from the Outside

  Saint John and the Back-Ache

  Sea Surface Full of Clouds

  Search for Sound Free from Motion, The

  Sense of the Sleight-of-hand Man, The

  Six Significant Landscapes

  Sketch of the Ultimate Politician

  Snow and Stars

  Snow Man, The

  So-And-So Reclining on Her Couch

  Some Friends from Pascagoula

  Somnambulisma

  Sonatina to Hans Christian

  Song of Fixed Accord

  Stars at Tallapoosa

  Study of Images I

  Study of Images II

  Study of Two Pears

  Sun This March, The

  Sunday Morning

  Surprises of the Superhuman, The

  Tattoo

  Tea

  Tea at the Palaz of Hoon

  Theory

  Things of August

  Thinking of a Relation between the Images of Metaphors

  Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

  This Solitude of Cataracts

  Thought Revolved, A

  Thunder by the Musician

  To an Old Philosopher in Rome

  To the One of Fictive Music

  To the Roaring Wind

  Tom McGreevy, in America, Thinks of Himself as a Boy

  Two at Norfolk

  Two Figures in Dense Violet Night

  Two Illustrations That the World Is What You Make of It

  Two Tales of Liadoff

  Two Versions of the Same Poem

  Ultimate Poem Is Abstract, The

  United Dames of America

  Vacancy in the Park

  Valley Candle

  Variations on a Summer Day

  Virgin Carrying a Lantern, The

  Waving Adieu, Adieu, Adieu

  Weak Mind in the Mountains, A

  Weeping Burgher, The

  Well Dressed Man with a Beard, The

  Westwardness of Everything, The

  What We See Is What We Think

  Wild Ducks, People and Distances

  Wind Shifts, The

  Winter Bells

  Woman in Sunshine, The

  Woman Looking at a Vase of Flowers

  Woman Sings a Song for a Soldier Come Home, A

  Word with José Rodríguez-Feo, A

  World as Meditation, The

  World without Peculiarity

  Worms at Heaven’s Gate, The

  Yellow Afternoon

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  WALLACE STEVENS was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, on October 2, 1879, and died in Hartford, Connecticut, on August 2, 1955. Although he had contributed to the Harvard Advocate while in college, he began to gain general recognition only when Harriet Monroe included four of his poems in a special 1914 wartime issue of Poetry. Harmonium, his first volume of poems, was published in 1923, and was followed by Ideas of Order (1936), The Man with the Blue Guitar (1937), Parts of a World (1942), Transport to Summer (1947), The Auroras of Autumn (1950), The Necessary Angel (a volume of essays, 1951), The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (1954), and Opus Posthumous (first published in 1957, edited by Samuel Freud Morse; a new, revised, and corrected edition by Milton J. Bates, 1989). Mr. Stevens was awarded the Bollingen Prize in Poetry of the Yale University Library for 1949. In 1951 he won the National Book Award in Poetry for The Auroras of Autumn; in 1955 he won it a second time for The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, which was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1955. From 1916 on, he was associated with the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, of which he became vice-president in 1934.

  WALLACE STEVENS

  Harmonium (1923, 1931, 1
937)

  The Man With the Blue Guitar INCLUDING Ideas of Order

  (1936, 1937; IN ONE VOLUME, 1952)

  Parts of a World (1942, 1951)

  Transport to Summer (1947)

  The Auroras of Autumn (1950)

  The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (1954)

  (INCLUDES ALL TITLES LISTED ABOVE)

  Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose (1957; 1989)

  (REVISED, ENLARGED, AND CORRECTED EDITION EDITED BY MILTON J. BATES)

  The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play (1971)

  (EDITED BY HOLLY STEVENS)

  The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination (1951)

  Letters of Wallace Stevens (1966)

  (SELECTED AND EDITED BY HOLLY STEVENS)

  Souvenirs and Prophecies: The Young Wallace Stevens (1977)

  (BY HOLLY STEVENS)