Wallace Stevens Held Fast in Common Earth

Wallace Stevens, quiet, uncertain,his attention dissolved, his meditationending impoverished, ponders improbabilitiesas facts drive strength from noblephrases and venerable formulations. Hislate power, solemn and reverent, nowcalls for the rabbi not in effulgent forceand fire but in tones mimicking a gull’scry piercing the harbor twilight. Butthen the sun replaced the sea: it was nowthe sun and he and speech no longerheaved but gasped and all his verses weremade less. Yet still the character he cravedwas cleaved from rock until it gave.