“Metamorphosis” by Wallace Stevens

November 1, 2015 • 7:10 am

Since November has arrived, I’ll take this opportunity to post one of my favorite Wallace Stevens poems. My absolute favorite is “Peter Quince at the Clavier“, but this one is more is appropriate as it expresses both the change of seasons and the degeneration of nature, ending with a completely disordered month.

Metamorphosis

by Wallace Stevens

Yillow, yillow, yillow,
Old worm, my pretty quirk,
How the wind spells out
Sep – tem – ber….

Summer is in bones.
Cock-robin’s at Caracas.
Make o, make o, make o,
Oto – otu – bre.

And the rude leaves fall.
The rain falls. The sky
Falls and lies with worms.
The street lamps

Are those that have been hanged.
Dangling in an illogical
To and to and fro
Fro Niz – nil – imbo.

17 thoughts on ““Metamorphosis” by Wallace Stevens”

  2. I know I posted this last year, but I will again:

    “November”

    by Thomas Hood

    No sun–no moon!
    No morn–no noon!
    No dawn–no dusk–no proper time of day–
    No sky–no earthly view–
    No distance looking blue–

    No road–no street–
    No “t’other side the way”–
    No end to any Row–
    No indications where the Crescents go–

    No top to any steeple–
    No recognitions of familiar people–
    No courtesies for showing ’em–
    No knowing ’em!

    No mail–no post–
    No news from any foreign coast–
    No park–no ring–no afternoon gentility–
    No company–no nobility–

    No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
    No comfortable feel in any member–
    No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
    No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
    November!

    Of course, October here in Florida has been unusually gray, and November should be brighter, thouhh cooler (all relative). My northern body has no doubt what the month and season are, though.

  3. Autumn Day

    Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
    Lay your long shadows on the sundials,
    and on the meadows let the winds go free.

    Command the last fruits to be full;
    give them just two more southern days,
    urge them on to completion and chase
    the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

    Who has no house now, will never build one.
    Who is alone now, will long remain so,
    will stay awake, read, write long letters
    and will wander restlessly up and down
    the tree-lined streets, when the leaves are drifting.

    – Rainer Maria Rilke, translation by Edward Snow.

  5. As imperceptibly as grief
    The summer lapsed away,
    Too imperceptible at last
    To seem like perfidy.

    A quietness distilled
    As twilight long begun,
    Or Nature spending with herself
    Sequestered afternoon.

    The dusk drew earlier in,
    The morning foreign shone-
    A courteous yet harrowing grace
    As guest who would be gone.

    And thus without a wing
    Or service of a keel,
    Our summer made her light escape
    Into the beautiful.

    –Emily Dickinson

  6. Very much enjoyed the Wallace, and all the readers’ contributions as well. Must sub to stay tuned for more in the way of poetic welcomings for November.

  7. I always appreciate reading poems on WEIT. Jerry, you have good taste in poets and poems!

    I like the readers’ autumn poems as well.

  9. Stevens a long-time favourite. Hard to choose one, but here’s Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

    I
    Among twenty snowy mountains,
    The only moving thing
    Was the eye of the blackbird.

    II
    I was of three minds,
    Like a tree
    In which there are three blackbirds.

    III
    The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
    It was a small part of the pantomime.

    IV
    A man and a woman
    Are one.
    A man and a woman and a blackbird
    Are one.

    V
    I do not know which to prefer,
    The beauty of inflections
    Or the beauty of innuendoes,
    The blackbird whistling
    Or just after.

    VI
    Icicles filled the long window
    With barbaric glass.
    The shadow of the blackbird
    Crossed it, to and fro.
    The mood
    Traced in the shadow
    An indecipherable cause.

    VII
    O thin men of Haddam,
    Why do you imagine golden birds?
    Do you not see how the blackbird
    Walks around the feet
    Of the women about you?

    VIII
    I know noble accents
    And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
    But I know, too,
    That the blackbird is involved
    In what I know.

    IX
    When the blackbird flew out of sight,
    It marked the edge
    Of one of many circles.

    X
    At the sight of blackbirds
    Flying in a green light,
    Even the bawds of euphony
    Would cry out sharply.

    XI
    He rode over Connecticut
    In a glass coach.
    Once, a fear pierced him,
    In that he mistook
    The shadow of his equipage
    For blackbirds.

    XII
    The river is moving.
    The blackbird must be flying.

    XIII
    It was evening all afternoon.
    It was snowing
    And it was going to snow.
    The blackbird sat
    In the cedar-limbs.

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