Wallace Stevens Quotes

American poet (1879–1955)

Wallace Stevens (2 October 1879 – 2 August 1955) was an American modernist poet and businessman.

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Poor, dear, silly Spring, preparing her annual surprise!

Esthétique du Mal (1944)

Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are Twenty men crossing a bridge Into a village.

It is the sea that whitens the roof. The sea drifts through the winter air. It is the sea that the north wind makes. The sea is in the falling snow. This gloom is the darkness of the sea.

I am one of you and being one of you Is being and knowing what I am and know. Yet I am the necessary angel of earth, Since, in my sight, you see the earth again, Cleared of its stiff and stubborn, man-locked set And, in my hearing, you hear its tragic drone Rise liquidly in liquid lingerings, Like watery words awash; like meanings said By repetitions of half-meanings. Am I not, Myself, only half a figure of a sort, A figure half seen, or seen for a moment, a man Of the mind, an apparition appareled in Apparels of such lightest look that a turn Of my shoulders and quickly, too quickly, I am gone?

The meeting of their shadows or that meet In a book in a barrack, a letter from Malay. But your war ends. And after it you return

Without a name and nothing to be desired, If only imagined but imagined well.

Is it he or is it I that experience this?

There is no wing like meaning

Bethou me, said sparrow, to the crackled blade, And you, and you, bethou me as you blow, When in my coppice you behold me be.

In European thought in general, as contrasted with American, vigor, life and originality have a kind of easy, professional utterance. American — on the other hand, is expressed in an eager amateurish way. A European gives a sense of scope, of survey, of consideration. An American is strained, sensational. One is artistic gold; the other is bullion.

People should like poetry the way a child likes snow, and they would if poets wrote it.

My dame, sing for this person accurate songs.

The right, uplifted foreleg of the horse Suggested that, at the final funeral, The music halted and the horse stood still.

A candle is enough to light the world. It makes it clear. Even at noon It glistens in essential dark. At night, it lights the fruit and wine, The book and bread, things as they are...