Monday, October 02, 2023

A Quiet Normal Life

 

His place, as he sat and as he thought, was not
 In anything that he constructed, so frail,
 So barely lit, so shadowed over and naught,

 As, for example, a world in which, like snow,
 He became an inhabitant, obedient
 To gallant notions on the part of cold.

 It was here. This was the setting and the time
 Of year. Here in his house and in his room,
 In his chair, the most tranquil thoughts grew peaked

 And the oldest and warmest heart was cut
 By gallant notions on the part of night—
 Both late and alone, above the cricket’s chords,

 Babbling, each one, the uniqueness of its sound. 
 There was no fury in transcendent forms. 
 But his actual candle blazed with artifice.

--Wallace Stevens

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