Poems by Wallace Stevens

 

What is Divinity

What is divinity if it can come

Only in silent shadows and in dreams?

Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,

In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else

In any balm or beauty of the earth,

Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?

Divinity must live within herself:

Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;

Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued

Elations when the forest blooms; gusty

Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;

All pleasures and all pains, remembering

The bough of summer and the winter branch,

These are the measures destined for her soul.

Depression Before Spring

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.

BIO: Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) was a modern American poet who worked as a lawyer and businessman. As a young man, he became friends with Greenwich Village poets William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and E.E. Cummings. His first poem was published by Harriet Monroe in Poetry in 1914. His first collection of poems, Harmonium, was published in 1923. Steven's poetry was considered very modern and original for its time. In 1935, after a drinking binge, he got into an argument with poet, Robert Frost. A year later, Ernest Hemingway punched him out down in Key West, Florida. In 1955, not long before his death, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Works. He still has a large following of fans.

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