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Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

Gray Room

Although you sit in a room that is gray,
Except for the silver
Of the straw-paper,
And pick
At your pale white gown;
Or lift one of the green beads
Of your necklace,
To let it fall;
Or gaze at your green fan
Printed with the red branches of a red willow;
Or, with one finger,
Move the leaf in the bowl—
The leaf that has fallen from the branches of the forsythia
Beside you...
What is all this?
I know how furiously your heart is beating.

#Americans Modern

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Other works by Wallace Stevens...
Nomad Exquisite

As the immense dew of Florida Brings forth The big-finned palm And green vine angering for life, As the immense dew of Florida
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Infanta Marina

Her terrace was the sand And the palms and the twilight. She made of the motions of her wri… The grandiose gestures Of her thought.
The River of Rivers in Connecticut

There is a great river this side o… Before one comes to the first blac… And trees that lack the intelligen… In that river, far this side of S… The mere flowing of the water is a…
Poem Written at Morning

A sunny day’s complete Poussinian… Divide it from itself. It is this… And it is not. By metaphor you paint A thing. Thus, the pineapple was…
The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad

The time of year has grown indiffe… Mildew of summer and the deepening… Are both alike in the routine I k… I am too dumbly in my being pent. The wind attendant on the solstice…
Lunar Paraphrase

he moon is the mother of pathos an… When, at the wearier end of Novem… Her old light moves along the bran… Feebly, slowly, depending upon the… When the body of Jesus hangs in a…
In the Carolinas

The lilacs wither in the Carolina… Already the butterflies flutter ab… Already the new-born children inte… In the voices of mothers. Timeless mothers,
Bantams in Pine-Woods

Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caf… Of tan with henna hackles, halt! Damned universal cock, as if the s… Was blackamoor to bear your blazin… Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! I am the per…
Indian River

The trade-wind jingles the rings i… by the docks on Indian River. It is the same jingle of the water… banks of the palmettoes. It is the same jingle of the red-b…
Looking Across the Fields and Watching the Birds Fly

Among the more irritating minor id… Of Mr. Homburg during his visits… To Concord, at the edge of things… To think away the grass, the trees… Not to transform them into other t…
It Must Give Pleasure

To sing jubilas at exact, accustom… To be crested and wear the mane of… And so, as part, to exult with its… To speak of joy and to sing of it,… The shoulders of joyous men, to fe…
The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm

The house was quiet and the world… The reader became the book; and su… Was like the conscious being of th… The house was quiet and the world… The words were spoken as if there…
A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts

The difficulty to think at the end… When the shapeless shadow covers t… And nothing is left except light o… There was the cat slopping its mil… Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, w…
 1
The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain

There it was, word for word, The poem that took the place of a… He breathed its oxygen, Even when the book lay turned in t… It reminded him how he had needed
What is Divinity

What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in drea… Shall she not find in comforts of… In pungent fruit and bright, green… In any balm or beauty of the earth…



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