The House Was Quiet and the World
Was Calm
The reader became the book; and summer
night
Was like the conscious being of the
book.
The house was quiet and the world was
calm.
The words were spoken as if there was
no book,
Except that the reader leaned above
the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom the book is true,
to whom
The summer night is like a perfection
of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to
be.
The quiet was part of the meaning,
part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a
calm world,
In which there is no other meaning,
itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night,
itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading
there.
In this poem we see Wallace Stevens meditating
on reading late one summer night. The magic of Stevens here allows
him to bring together the book, the house, the night, and the world
with the reader. Inner and outer blend as the quiet calmness of the
poem produces a reverie, and for the reader who is experiencing this
-- perfection in the poetic imagery. One feels the solitude and
escape from the everyday quotidian details of life. Perhaps this
captures the feeling you have when you are able to escape through
reading a book.
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