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Wallace Stevens

uit Harmonium (1923)

• Rationalists (de laatste van Six Significant Landscapes)
• Theory
   

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Theory

I am what is around me.

Women understand this.
One is not duchess
A hundred yards from a carriage.

These, then are portraits:
A black vestibule;
A high bed sheltered by curtains.

These are merely instances.

 

 

This site was last updated
 november, 2025