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"How cold the vacancy
When the phantoms are gone and the shaken realist
First sees reality. The mortal no
Has its emptiness and tragic expirations."
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), U.S. poet. "Esthétique du Mal." |
"Civilization must be destroyed. The hairy saints
Of the North have earned this crumb by their complaints."
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), U.S. poet. New England Verses, "Land of Pine and Marble," Harmonium (1923). |
"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."
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), U.S. poet. Sunday Morning (l. 61-65). . .
Collected Poems [Stevie Smith]. James MacGibbon, ed. (1976) New Directions. |
"It was autumn and falling stars
Covered the shrivelled forms
Crouched in the moonlight."
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), U.S. poet. "The Reader." |
"How has the human spirit ever survived the terrific literature with which it has had to contend?"
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), U.S. poet. "Adagia," Opus Posthumous (1959). |
"To lose sensibility, to see what one sees,
As if sight had not its own miraculous thrift,
To hear only what one hears, one meaning alone,
As if the paradise of meaning ceased
To be paradise, it is this to be destitute."
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), U.S. poet. "Esthétique du Mal." |
"Let us erect in the Basin a lofty fountain.
Suckled on ponds, the spirit craves a watery mountain."
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), U.S. poet. "New England Verses." |
"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."
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), U.S. poet. Sunday Morning (l. 1-5). . .
Collected Poems [Stevie Smith]. James MacGibbon, ed. (1976) New Directions. |
"Infant, it is enough in life
To speak of what you see. But wait
Until sight wakens the sleepy eye
And pierces the physical fix of things."
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), U.S. poet. "The Red Fern." |
"The imagination is man's power over nature."
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), U.S. poet. "Adagia," Opus Posthumous (1959). |
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Wallace Stevens
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