Continual Conversation With A Silent Man by Wallace Stevens
The old brown hen and the old blue sky, Between the two we live and die– The broken cartwheel on the hill. As if, in the presence of the sea, We dried our nets and mended sail And talked of never-ending things, Of the never-ending storm of will, One will and many wills, and the […]
Bantams In Pine-Woods by Wallace Stevens
Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan Of tan with henna hackles, halt! Damned universal cock, as if the sun Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail. Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! I am the personal. Your world is you. I am my world. You ten-foot poet among inchlings. Fat! Begone! An inchling bristles in these pines, […]
Gray Room by Wallace Stevens
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 […]
A Postcard From The Volcano by Wallace Stevens
Children picking up our bones Will never know that these were once As quick as foxes on the hill; And that in autumn, when the grapes Made sharp air sharper by their smell These had a being, breathing frost; And least will guess that with our bones We left much more, left what still is […]
A High-Toned Old Christian Woman by Wallace Stevens
Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame. Take the moral law and make a nave of it And 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 take The opposing law and make a peristyle, And from the peristyle […]
A Rabbit As King Of The Ghosts by Wallace Stevens
The difficulty to think at the end of day, When the shapeless shadow covers the sun And nothing is left except light on your fur— There was the cat slopping its milk all day, Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, white milk And August the most peaceful month. To be, in the grass, in the […]
Final Soliloquy Of The Interior Paramour by Wallace Stevens
Light the first light of evening, as in a room In which we rest and, for small reason, think The world imagined is the ultimate good. This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous. It is in that thought that we collect ourselves, Out of all the indifferences, into one thing: Within a single thing, a single […]
Domination Of Black by Wallace Stevens
At night, by the fire, The colors of the bushes And of the fallen leaves, Repeating themselves, Turned in the room, Like the leaves themselves Turning in the wind. Yes: but the color of the heavy hemlocks Came striding. And I remembered the cry of the peacocks. The colors of their tails Were like the […]
Disillusionment Of Ten O’clock by Wallace Stevens
The houses are haunted By white night-gowns. None are green, Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. None of them are strange, With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. People are not going To dream of baboons and periwinkles. Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk […]
Not Ideas About The Thing But The Thing Itself by Wallace Stevens
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 […]
Metaphors Of A Magnifico by Wallace Stevens
Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges, Into twenty villages, Or one man Crossing a single bridge into a village. This is old song That will not declare itself . . . Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are Twenty men crossing a bridge Into a […]
Looking Across The Fields And Watching The Birds Fly by Wallace Stevens
Among the more irritating minor ideas Of Mr. Homburg during his visits home To Concord, at the edge of things, was this: To think away the grass, the trees, the clouds, Not to transform them into other things, Is only what the sun does every day, Until we say to ourselves that there may be […]
Life Is Motion by Wallace Stevens
In Oklahoma, Bonnie and Josie, Dressed in calico, Danced around a stump. They cried, “Ohoyaho, Ohoo” … Celebrating the marriage Of flesh and air. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry. Poetry Monster — the […]
Infanta Marina by Wallace Stevens
Her terrace was the sand And the palms and the twilight. She made of the motions of her wrist The grandiose gestures Of her thought. The rumpling of the plumes Of this creature of the evening Came to be sleights of sails Over the sea. And thus she roamed In the roamings of her fan, […]
Gubbinal by Wallace Stevens
That strange flower, the sun, Is just what you say. Have it your way. The world is ugly, And the people are sad. That tuft of jungle feathers, That animal eye, Is just what you say. That savage of fire, That seed, Have it your way. The world is ugly, And the people are sad. […]
Fabliau Of Florida by Wallace Stevens
Barque of phosphor On the palmy beach, Move outward into heaven, Into the alabasters And night blues. Foam and cloud are one. Sultry moon-monsters Are dissolving. Fill your black hull With white moonlight. There will never be an end To this droning of the surf. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem […]
Earthy Anecdote by Wallace Stevens
Every time the bucks went clattering Over Oklahoma A firecat bristled in the way. Wherever they went, They went clattering, Until they swerved In a swift, circular line To the right, Because of the firecat. Or until they swerved In a swift, circular line To the left, Because of the firecat. The bucks clattered. The […]
Depression Before Spring by Wallace Stevens
The cock crows But no queen rises. The hair of my blonde Is dazzling, As the spittle of cows threading the wind. Ho! Ho! But ki-ki-ri-ki Brings no rou-cou, No rou-cou-cou. But no queen comes In slipper green. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and […]
A Clear Day And No Memories by Wallace Stevens
No soldiers in the scenery, No thoughts of people now dead, As they were fifty years ago, Young and living in a live air, Young and walking in the sunshine, Bending in blue dresses to touch something, Today the mind is not part of the weather. Today the air is clear of everything. It has […]
Another Weeping Woman by Wallace Stevens
Pour the unhappiness out From your too bitter heart, Which grieving will not sweeten. Poison grows in this dark. It is in the water of tears Its black blooms rise. The magnificent cause of being, The imagination, the one reality In this imagined world Leaves you With him for whom no phantasy moves, And you […]
Anecdote Of Canna by Wallace Stevens
Huge are the canna in the dreams of X, the mighty thought, the mighty man. They fill the terrace of his capitol. His thought sleeps not. Yet thought that wakes In sleep may never meet another thought Or thing… Now day-break comes… X promenades the dewy stones, Observes the canna with a clinging eye, Observes […]
Year that Trembled. by Walt Whitman
YEAR that trembled and reel’d beneath me! Your summer wind was warm enough—yet the air I breathed froze me; A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken’d me; Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself; Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled? And sullen hymns of […]
World, Take Good Notice. by Walt Whitman
WORLD, take good notice, silver stars fading, Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching, Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning, Scarlet, significant, hands off warning, Now and henceforth flaunt from these shores. 5 ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate […]
World Below the Brine, The. by Walt Whitman
THE world below the brine; Forests at the bottom of the sea—the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds—the thick tangle, the openings, and the pink turf, Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold—the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks—coral, gluten, grass, rushes—and […]
Whispers of Heavenly Death. by Walt Whitman
WHISPERS of heavenly death, murmur’d I hear; Labial gossip of night—sibilant chorals; Footsteps gently ascending—mystical breezes, wafted soft and low; Ripples of unseen rivers—tides of a current, flowing, forever flowing; (Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?) I see, just see, skyward, great cloud-masses; Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently […]
When I read the Book. by Walt Whitman
WHEN I read the book, the biography famous, And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a man’s life? And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life? (As if any man really knew aught of my life; Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or […]
When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer. by Walt Whitman
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 the 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; […]
What Place is Besieged? by Walt Whitman
WHAT place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege? Lo! I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal; And with him horse and foot—and parks of artillery, And artillery-men, the deadliest that ever fired gun. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic […]
What General has a Good Army. by Walt Whitman
WHAT General has a good army in himself, has a good army; He happy in himself, or she happy in herself, is happy, But I tell you you cannot be happy by others, any more than you can beget or conceive a child by others. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem […]
What am I, After All? by Walt Whitman
WHAT am I, after all, but a child, pleas’d with the sound of my own name? repeating it over and over; I stand apart to hear—it never tires me. To you, your name also; Did you think there was nothing but two or three pronunciations in the sound of your name? ————— The End And […]
We Two—How Long We were Fool’d. by Walt Whitman
WE two—how long we were fool’d! Now transmuted, we swiftly escape, as Nature escapes; We are Nature—long have we been absent, but now we return; We become plants, leaves, foliage, roots, bark; We are bedded in the ground—we are rocks; We are oaks—we grow in the openings side by side; We browse—we are two among […]
We Two Boys Together Clinging. by Walt Whitman
WE two boys together clinging, One the other never leaving, Up and down the roads going—North and South excursions making, Power enjoying—elbows stretching—fingers clutching, Arm’d and fearless—eating, drinking, sleeping, loving, No law less than ourselves owning—sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening, Misers, menials, priests alarming—air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing, Cities wrenching, […]
Visor’d. by Walt Whitman
A MASK—a perpetual natural disguiser of herself, Concealing her face, concealing her form, Changes and transformations every hour, every moment, Falling upon her even when she sleeps. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry. Poetry […]
Turn, O Libertad. by Walt Whitman
TURN, O Libertad, for the war is over, (From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no more, resolute, sweeping the world,) Turn from lands retrospective, recording proofs of the past; From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the past; From the chants of the feudal world—the triumphs of kings, slavery, caste; Turn to […]
To You. by Walt Whitman
STRANGER! if you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you? ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry. Poetry […]
To Thee, Old Cause! by Walt Whitman
TO thee, old Cause! Thou peerless, passionate, good cause! Thou stern, remorseless, sweet Idea! Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands! After a strange, sad war—great war for thee, (I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be really fought, for thee;) These chants for thee—the eternal march of thee. Thou orb […]
To a Pupil. by Walt Whitman
IS reform needed? Is it through you? The greater the reform needed, the greater the personality you need to accomplish it. You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood, complexion, clean and sweet? Do you not see how it would serve to have such a Body and Soul, that when […]
To a Locomotive in Winter. by Walt Whitman
THEE for my recitative! Thee in the driving storm, even as now—the snow—the winter-day declining; Thee in thy panoply, thy measured dual throbbing, and thy beat convulsive; Thy black cylindric body, golden brass, and silvery steel; Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating, shuttling at thy sides; Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar—now […]
To a Historian. by Walt Whitman
YOU who celebrate bygones! Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races—the life that has exhibited itself; Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and priests; I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself, in his own rights, Pressing the pulse of the […]
To a foil’d European Revolutionaire. by Walt Whitman
1 COURAGE yet! my brother or my sister! Keep on! Liberty is to be subserv’d, whatever occurs; That is nothing, that is quell’d by one or two failures, or any number of failures, Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness, Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, […]