| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Of Heaven Considered As a Tomb | | By Wallace Stevens |
| | From “Sur Ma Guzzla Gracile”
WHAT word have you, interpreters, of men | |
| Who in the tomb of heaven walk by night, | |
| The darkened ghosts of our old comedy? | |
| Do they believe they range the gusty cold, | |
| With lanterns borne aloft to light the way, | 5 |
| Freemen of death, about and still about | |
| To find whatever it is they seek? Or does | |
| That burial, pillared up each day as porte | |
| And spiritous passage into nothingness, | |
| Foretell each night the one abysmal night, | 10 |
| When the host shall no more wander, nor the light | |
| Of the steadfast lanterns creep across the dark? | |
| Make hue among the dark comedians, | |
| Halloo them in the topmost distances | |
| For answer from their icy Elysée. | 15 | | | |
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