"It was caparison of mind and cloud / And something given to make whole among / The ruses that were shattered by the large."
— Stevens, Wallace (1879-1955)
Author
Place of Publication
New York
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Date
September 7, 1923
Metaphor
"It was caparison of mind and cloud / And something given to make whole among / The ruses that were shattered by the large."
Metaphor in Context
Here was the veritable ding an sich, at last,
Crispin confronting it, a vocable thing,
But with a speech belched out of hoary darks
Noway resembling his, a visible thing,
And excepting negligible Triton, free
From the unavoidable shadow of himself
That lay elsewhere around him. Severance
Was clear. The last distortion of romance
Forsook the insatiable egotist. The sea
Severs not only lands but also selves.
Here was no help before reality.
Crispin beheld and Crispin was made new.
The imagination, here, could not evade,
In poems of plums, the strict austerity
Of one vast, subjugating, final tone.
The drenching of stale lives no more fell down.
What was this gaudy, gusty panoply?
Out of what swift destruction did it spring?
It was caparison of mind and cloud
And something given to make whole among
The ruses that were shattered by the large.
(ll. 69-89)
Crispin confronting it, a vocable thing,
But with a speech belched out of hoary darks
Noway resembling his, a visible thing,
And excepting negligible Triton, free
From the unavoidable shadow of himself
That lay elsewhere around him. Severance
Was clear. The last distortion of romance
Forsook the insatiable egotist. The sea
Severs not only lands but also selves.
Here was no help before reality.
Crispin beheld and Crispin was made new.
The imagination, here, could not evade,
In poems of plums, the strict austerity
Of one vast, subjugating, final tone.
The drenching of stale lives no more fell down.
What was this gaudy, gusty panoply?
Out of what swift destruction did it spring?
It was caparison of mind and cloud
And something given to make whole among
The ruses that were shattered by the large.
(ll. 69-89)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Stevens, Wallace. "The Comedian as the Letter C." Harmonium. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923. pp. 45-69. <Link to RPO>
Date of Entry
12/17/2009
