Wallace Stevens

From “Pecksniffiana”

TWO WOODEN tubs of blue hydrangeas stand at the foot of the stone steps.

The sky is a blue gum streaked with rose. The trees are black.

The grackles crack their throats of bone in the smooth air.

Moisture and heat have swollen the garden into a slum of bloom.

Pardie! Summer is like a fat beast, sleepy in mildew,

Our old bane, green and bloated, serene, who cries,

“That bliss of stars, that princox of evening heaven!” reminding of seasons,

When radiance came running down, slim through the bareness.

And so it is one damns that green shade at the bottom of the land.

For who can care at the wigs despoiling the Satan ear?

And who does not seek the sky unfuzzed, soaring to the princox?

One has a malady, here, a malady. One feels a malady.