Harmonium quotes
The lines readers remember from Harmonium, by Wallace Stevens.
38 quotes · About the book
Standout lines
The natives of the rain are rainy men.
What is one man among so many men?
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Your world is you. I am my world.
Imagination is the will of things....
The body dies; the body’s beauty lives.
All quotes
Jump to a chapter
- In the Carolinas
- Chapter I
- Chapter II
- Chapter V
- Chapter VI
- Another Weeping Woman
- III Approaching Carolina
- IV The Idea of a Colony
- V A Nice Shady Home
- Valley Candle
- The Silver Plough-Boy
- A High-Toned Old Christian Woman
- Banal Sojourn
- The Emperor of Ice-Cream
- Stars at Tallapoosa
- Chapter VI
- Bantams in Pine-Woods
- Tattoo
- Chapter IV
- Colloquy with a Polish Aunt
- Two Figures in Dense Violet Night
- Theory
- To the One of Fictive Music
- Chapter IV
- Chapter XIII
In the Carolinas
The lilacs wither in the Carolinas.
The pine-tree sweetens my body.
The white iris beautifies me.
Chapter I
I wish that I might be a thinking stone.
Chapter II
A red bird flies across the golden floor.
No spring can follow past meridian.
Chapter V
In the high west there burns a furious star.
Chapter VI
There is a substance in us that prevails.
Another Weeping Woman
Poison grows in this dark.
III Approaching Carolina
He savored rankness like a sensualist.
IV The Idea of a Colony
His western voyage ended and began.
The natives of the rain are rainy men.
All dreams are vexing. Let them be expunged.
V A Nice Shady Home
The words of things entangle and confuse.
What is one man among so many men?
Can one man be one thing and be it long?
For realists, what is is what should be.
Valley Candle
My candle burned alone in an immense valley.
The Silver Plough-Boy
A black figure dances in a black field.
A High-Toned Old Christian Woman
Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Banal Sojourn
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.
One has a malady, here, a malady. One feels a malady.
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Stars at Tallapoosa
The lines are straight and swift between the stars.
Chapter VI
Rationalists would wear sombreros.
Bantams in Pine-Woods
Your world is you. I am my world.
Tattoo
The light is like a spider.
Chapter IV
Let us build the building of light.
Colloquy with a Polish Aunt
Imagination is the will of things....
Two Figures in Dense Violet Night
Be the voice of night and Florida in my ear.
Use dusky words and dusky images.
Theory
I am what is around me.
To the One of Fictive Music
No crown is simpler than the simple hair.
Chapter IV
The body dies; the body’s beauty lives.
Chapter XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
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