A Quiet Normal Life

      It's been a while since I've let Mr Stevens sing on this blog. I should remedy this. Here is a piece from Mr Stevens' last series of poems, generally named The Rock but they were never published independently, appearing first in The Collected Poems.

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 thought grew peaked

And the oldest and the warmest heart was cut
By gallant notions on the part of night---
Both late and alone, above the crickets' chords,

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

It's a beautiful poem, one I'll let stand sans commentary. "The crickets' chords," though, is genius.