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Sunday, December 12, 2010

Sunday blog: Mind and heart


 

For the third Sunday of Advent: one of my favorite bits of Wallace Stevens. To be read aloud.

 

 

*

 

 

Day is the children's friend.

It is Marianna's Swedish cart.

It is that and a very big hat.

 

 

Confined by what they see,

Aquiline pedants treat the cart

As one of the relics of the heart,

 

 

They treat the philosopher's hat,

Left thoughtlessly behind,

As one of the relics of the mind . . .

 

 

Of day, then, children make

What aquiline pedants take

For souvenirs of time, lost time,

 

 

Adieux, shapes, images -

No, not of day, but of themselves,

Not of perpetual time.

 

 

And, therefore, aquiline pedants find

The philosopher's hat to be part of the mind,

The Swedish cart to be part of the heart.

 

 


 

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