Poem by Wallace Stevens

The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain

There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.

He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.

It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction,

How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,

For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:

The exact rock where his inexactness
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home.

1. Of the Surface of Things
2. To the Roaring Wind
3. The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm
4. Looking across the Fields and Watching the Birds Fly
5. Not Ideas about the Thing but the Thing Itself

Print

1344 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version