Illustration

The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician

The Problem of Life is old. I have endeavored to approach it afresh, with a new method, in a new spirit, from a new point of view.

The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician
Wallace Stevens
1919

It comes about that the drifting of these curtains
Is full of long motions, as the ponderous
Deflations of distance; or as clouds
Inseparable from their afternoons;
Or the changing of light, the dropping
Of the silence, wide sleep and solitude
Of night, in which all motion
Is beyond us, as the firmament,
Up-rising and down-falling, bares
The last largeness, bold to see.

“Harmonium”

Poetry Collection

Earthy Anecdote
Invective Against Swans
In the Carolinas
The Paltry Nude Starts on a Spring Voyage
The Plot Against the Giant
Infanta Marina
Domination of Black
The Snow Man
The Ordinary Women
The Load of Sugar-Cane
Le Monocle de Mon Oncle
Nuances of a Theme by Williams
Metaphors of a Magnifico
Ploughing on Sunday
Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et Les Unze Mille Vierges
Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores
Fabliau of Florida
The Doctor of Geneva
Another Weeping Woman
Homunculus et La Belle Etoile
The Comedian as the Letter C
From the Misery of Don Joost
O Florida, Venereal Soil
Last Look at the Lilacs
The Worms at Heaven's Gate
The Jack-Rabbit
Anecdote of Men by the Thousand
The Silver Plough Boy
The Apostrophe to Vincentine
Floral Decorations for Bananas

Anecdote of Canna
Of the Manner of Addressing Clouds
Of Heaven Considered as a Tomb
Of the Surface of Things
Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks
A High-Toned Old Christian Woman
The Place of the Solitaires
The Weeping Burgher
The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician
Banal Sojourn
Depression Before Spring
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
The Cuban Doctor
Tea at the Palaz of Hoon
Exposition of the Contents of a Cab
Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock
Sunday Morning
The Virgin Carrying a Lantern
Stars at Tallapoosa
Explanation
Six Significant Landscapes
Bantams in Pine-Woods
Anecdote of the Jar
Palace of the Babies
Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs.
Jasmine's Beautiful Thoughts Underneath the Willow
Cortège for Rosenbloom
Tattoo

The Bird with the Coppery, Keen Claws
Life is Motion
Architecture
The Wind Shifts
Colloquy with a Polish Aunt
Gubbinal
Two Figures in Dense Violet Night
Theory
To the One of Fictive Music
Hymn from a Watermelon Pavilion
Peter Quince at the Clavier
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Nomad Exquisite
Tea
To the Roaring WindPoems Added to Harmonium (1931)
The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad
The Death of a Soldier
Negation
The Surprises of the Superhuman
Sea Surface Full of Clouds
The Revolutionists Stop for Orangeade
New England Verses
Lunar Paraphrase
Anatomy of Monotony
The Public Square
Sonatina to Hans Christian
In the Clear Season of Grapes
Two at Norfolk
Indian River