by Lydia Sigourney
MORN on her rosy couch awoke,
Enchantment led the hour,
And mirth and music drank the dews
That freshen Beauty’s flower.
Then from her bower of deep delight,
I heard a young girl sing,
“Oh, speak no ill of poetry,
For ’tis a holy thing.” Continue reading Poetry.
by Lydia Sigourney
DEATH found strange beauty on that polish’d brow,
And dash’d it out. There was a tint of rose
On cheek and lip. He touched the veins with ice,
And the rose faded. Continue reading Death of an Infant
by Ann Plato
When in the morning’s misty hour,
When the sun beems gently o’er each flower;
When thou dost cease to smile benign,
And think each heart responds with thine,
When seeking rest among divine,
Forget me not. Continue reading Forget Me Not.
by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Think not, when the wailing winds of autumn
Drive the shivering leaflets from the tree,—
Think not all is over: spring returneth,
Buds and leaves and blossoms thou shalt see. Continue reading Think Not All Is Over
This poem describes a simple arrangement of pink and white carnations in a white bowl. Perhaps this image was based on an actual centerpiece that Stevens’s wife, Elsie, had placed on their dining room table. As the poet contemplates this centerpiece, his attention focuses on its striking simplicity. Continue reading The Poems of Our Climate
“The Plain Sense of Things” also takes place in Elizabeth Park. It is late autumn, the leaves have fallen, and the park looks bare. The greenhouse is exposed in all its dilapidation. The water lilies on the pond are now just “waste.” It seems to Stevens that this is how the world would look if one had no imagination. He wonders if the depression he feels, looking at this barren scene, means that his own imagination has failed. But no. He realizes that “the absence of the imagination had / Itself to be imagined.” His perception of this scene, his feelings about it, and his description of it in this poem are themselves imaginative acts. Our imaginations are always at work. Continue reading The Plain Sense of Things
This poem was inspired by something Stevens saw in Elizabeth Park. In a letter to a friend, he wrote, “Until quite lately a group of nuns came [to Elizabeth Park] each morning to paint water colors especially of the water lilies” (L 610). In this poem he imagines the nuns’ thoughts. As they paint, they ponder the miraculous beauty of life which seems to them “supernatural” in origin. This experience awakens in them a refreshing clarity of mind and spirit. They feel that this is a “special day” and that they themselves are an integral part of it. There were several French orders of nuns in the Hartford area, which explains all the French terms in the poem. Continue reading Nuns Painting Water-Lilies
Stevens loved vacationing in Florida to escape the Connecticut winters for a while. What is the speaker’s response to the tropical imagery in this poem? Note the many word-repetitions in this poem. And note the alliteration (repeated consonants) in the last two lines. What is the effect of so much repetition? Continue reading Nomad Exquisite
What do you think it means to have “a mind of winter” and “not to think / Of any misery in the sound of the wind, / In the sound of a few leaves”? What would the snow man be doing if he did think of “misery” in those things? The poem is all one sentence; why do you think Stevens did that? Why do you think he repeats “nothing” three times in the final stanza? Continue reading The Snow Man