What I Found in Jack's Children's Treasury of
Wallace Steven Poems


Six Significant Landscapes



I


An old man sits


In the shadow of a pine tree


In China.


He sees larkspur,


Blue and white,


At the edge of the shadow,


Move in the wind.


His beard moves in the wind.


The pine tree moves in the wind.


Thus water flows


Over weeds.





II


The night is of the colour


Of a woman's arm:


Night, the female,


Obscure,


Fragrant and supple,


Conceals herself.


A pool shines,


Like a bracelet


Shaken in a dance.





III


I measure myself


Against a tall tree.


I find that I am much taller,


For I reach right up to the sun,


With my eye;


And I reach to the shore of the sea


With my ear.


Nevertheless, I dislike


The way ants crawl


In and out of my shadow.





IV


When my dream was near the moon,


The white folds of its gown


Filled with yellow light.


The soles of its feet


Grew red.


Its hair filled


With certain blue crystallizations


From stars,


Not far off.





V


Not all the knives of the lamp-posts,


Nor the chisels of the long streets,


Nor the mallets of the domes


And high towers,


Can carve


What one star can carve,


Shining through the grape-leaves.





VI


Rationalists, wearing square hats,


Think, in square rooms,


Looking at the floor,


Looking at the ceiling.


They confine themselves


To right-angled triangles.


If they tried rhomboids,


Cones, waving lines, ellipses --


As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon --


Rationalists would wear sombreros.





Wallace Stevens