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Saturday 2 October 2010

Wallace Stevens: The Well Dressed Man with a Beard


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photo

Farmland along the upper Delaware River in New York state: photo by John Collier, June 1943



After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.
No was the night. Yes is this present sun.
If the rejected things, the things denied,
Slid over the western cataract, yet one,
One only, one thing that was firm, even
No greater than a cricket's horn, no more
Than a thought to be rehearsed all day, a speech
Of the self that must sustain itself on speech,
One thing remaining, infallible, would be
Enough. Ah! douce campagna of that thing!
Ah! douce campagna, honey in the heart,
Green in the body, out of a petty phrase,
Out of a thing believed, a thing affirmed:
The form on the pillow humming while one sleeps,
The aureole above the humming house . . .

It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.




photo

Farmland along the upper Delaware River in New York state: photo by John Collier, June 1943


Wallace Stevens:
The Well Dressed Man With a Beard, from Parts of a World, 1942


Photos by John Collier from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress

2 comments:

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

And after that yes of present sun this fog. . . . How beautiful to see these shadowed black trees along upper Delaware River, and read this Stevens after reading those two Williams - thanks for finding everything as such. . . .


10.2

light coming into fog against invisible
ridge, shadowed green of leaf on branch
in foreground, sound of wave in channel

line depending on that, time
that there is for which

of these places, same system,
what has just been said

silver of low sun reflected in channel,
line of pelicans flapping toward point

TC said...

Thanks Steve,

from the Delaware Valley to the channels,

time
that there is for which

of these places...