The Palm at the End of the Mind

Wallace Stevens

Contents ( 220)

VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, FEBRUARY 1990

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., in 1971.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stevens, Wallace, 1879–1955.
The palm at the end of the mind: selected poems and a play / by Wallace Stevens: edited by Holly Stevens.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-79185-6
I. Stevens, Holly. II. Title.
[PS3537.T4753A6 1990]
811’.52-dc19 75-136350

“Bowl, Cat and Broomstick,” a play, was originally published in the Quarterly Review of Literature, July 30, 1969, Princeton, New Jersey.

v3.1

“The palm at the end of the mind,

Beyond the last thought, rises

In the bronze decor …”

—“Of Mere Being”

PREFACE

The poems included in this selection have been chosen to represent my father not only at his best but also in the full range of his imagination. They have been arranged in chronological order, determined from manuscript evidence, correspondence, or date of publication. It should be noted, however, that poems dated only by publication must have been written earlier; when date of acceptance by a magazine is known, it helps to limit the gap, but is not definitive. The present order can therefore be debated and, hopefully, improved on in the future as further chronological evidence appears. One exception has been made: “First Warmth” and “As You Leave the Room” are printed together for easy comparison. The first appears to be an early version of the second, which Samuel French Morse dates “1947–55?”. Neither poem was published during Stevens’ lifetime.

Because no manuscript of poems that appeared in earlier books was submitted for Collected Poems, and because certain discrepancies in manuscript and magazine publication versions have not been resolved, minor changes have been made in punctuation, spelling, and line spacing without comment. Where more extensive variations occur, brief explanatory notes appear at the back of this book, although limitations of space preclude a full textual apparatus.

That same limitation has made the final choice difficult, and I am grateful to those scholars and teachers of my father’s poetry whose generous comments and suggestions have been helpful. And to those others who assisted in the preparation of the manuscript, my sincere thanks.

—HOLLY STEVENS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Preface

Blanche McCarthy

Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et Les Unze Mille Vierges

Tea

Sunday Morning

Peter Quince at the Clavier

The Silver Plough-Boy

Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock

For an Old Woman in a Wig

Domination of Black

Six Significant Landscapes

Inscription for a Monument

The Worms at Heaven’s Gate

In the Carolinas

Indian River

To the Roaring Wind

Valley Candle

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

The Palm at the End of the Mind

PREFACE

CONTENTS