PETER QUINCE AT THE CLAVIER
by: Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
I
- UST as my fingers on these keys
- Make music, so the self-same sounds
- On my spirit make a music, too.
-
- Music is feeling, then, not sound;
- And thus it is that what I feel,
- Here in this room, desiring you,
-
- Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
- Is music. It is like the strain
- Waked in the elders by Susanna:
-
- Of a green evening, clear and warm,
- She bathed in her still garden, while
- The red-eyed elders, watching, felt
-
- The basses of their beings throb
- In witching chords, and their thin blood
- Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.
-
- II
-
- In the green water, clear and warm,
- Susanna lay.
- She searched
- The torch of Springs,
- And found
- Concealed imaginings.
- She sighed,
- For so much melody.
-
- Upon the bank, she stood
- In the cool
- Of spent emotions.
- She felt, among the leaves,
- The dew
- Of old devotions.
-
- She walked upon the grass,
- Still quavering.
- The winds were like her maids,
- On timid feet,
- Fetching her woven scarves,
- Yet wavering.
-
- A breath upon her hand
- Muted the night.
- She turned--
- A cymbal crashed,
- And roaring horns.
-
- III
-
- Soon, with a noise like tambourines,
- Came her attendant Byzantines.
-
- They wondered why Susanna cried
- Against the elders by her side;
-
- And as they whispered, the refrain
- Was like a willow swept by rain.
-
- Anon, their lamps' uplifted flame
- Revealed Susanna and her shame.
-
- And then, the simpering Byzantines,
- Fled, with a noise like tambourines.
-
- IV
-
- Beauty is momentary in the mind --
- The fitful tracing of a portal;
- But in the flesh it is immortal.
-
- The body dies; the body's beauty lives,
- So evenings die, in their green going,
- A wave, interminably flowing.
- So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
- The cowl of Winter, done repenting.
- So maidens die, to the auroral
- Celebration of a maiden's choral.
-
- Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings
- Of those white elders; but, escaping,
- Left only Death's ironic scrapings.
-
- Now, in its immortality, it plays
- On the clear viol of her memory,
- And makes a constant sacrament of praise.
"Peter Quince at the Clavier"
is reprinted from Others: A Magazine of the New Verse,
August 1915. |
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POEMS BY WALLACE STEVENS |
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