Wallace Stevens Spring Quotations

Poor, dear, silly Spring, preparing her annual surprise!

The muddy rivers of spring Are snarling Under the muddy skies. The mind is muddy.

The grackles sing avant the spring Most spiss oh! Yes, most spissantly. They sing right puissantly.

Yet there is no spring in Florida, neither in boskage perdu, nor on the nunnery beaches.

Unfortunately there is nothing more inane than an Easter carol. It is a religious perversion of the activity of Spring in our blood.

In the same way, you were happy in spring, With the half colors of quarter-things, The slightly brighter sky, the melting clouds, The single bird, the obscure moon- The obscure moon lighting an obscure world Of thing that would never be quite expressed, Where you yourself were never quite yourself And did not want nor have to be ...

There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured As April's green endures; or will endure Like her remembrance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow's wings.