Wallace Stevens. From the Misery of Don Joost. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

From the Misery of Don Joost

By Wallace Stevens


From “Sur Ma Guzzla Gracile” I HAVE finished my combat with the sun;
And my body, the old animal,
Knows nothing more.

The powerful seasons bred and killed,
And were themselves the genii	5
Of their own ends.

Oh, but the very self of the storm
Of sun and slaves, breeding and death,
The old animal—

The senses and feeling, the very sound	10
And sight, and all there was of the storm—
Knows nothing more.