To the One of Fictive Music

Poem by Wallace Stevens

"To the One of Fictive Music" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. First published in 1922, it is in the public domain.[1]

To the One of Fictive Music

> Sister and mother and diviner love,
>  And of the sisterhood of the living dead
>  Most near, most clear, and of the clearest bloom,
>  And of the fragrant mothers the most dear
>  And queen, and of diviner love the day
>  And flame and summer and sweet fire, no thread
>  Of cloudy silver sprinkles in your gown
>  Its venom of renown, and on your head
>  No crown is simpler than the simple hair.

>  Now, of the music summoned by the birth
>  That separates us from the wind and sea,
>  Yet leaves us in them, until earth becomes,
>  By being so much of the things we are,
>  Gross effigy and simulacrum, none
>  Gives motion to perfection more serene
>  Than yours, out of our imperfections wrought,
>  Most rare, or ever of more kindred air
>  In the laborious weaving that you wear.

>  For so retentive of themselves are men
>  That music is intensest which proclaims
>  The near, the clear, and vaunts the clearest bloom,
>  And of all the vigils musing the obscure,
>  That apprehends the most which sees and names,
>  As in your name, an image that is sure,
>  Among the arrant spices of the sun,
>  O bough and bush and scented vine, in whom
>  We give ourselves our likest issuance.

>  Yet not too like, yet not so like to be
>  Too near, too clear, saving a little to endow
>  Our feigning with the strange unlike, whence springs
>  The difference that heavenly pity brings.
>  For this, musician, in your girdle fixed
>  Bear other perfumes. On your pale head wear
>  A band entwining, set with fatal stones.
>  Unreal, give back to us what once you gave:
>  The imagination that we spurned and crave.

## Interpretation

[edit]

Stevens, the musical imagist, invokes the muse of poetry for "an image that is sure" in a kind of music that "gives motion to perfection more serene" than other forms of music summoned by the human condition. The poet aims at a kind of simplicity and spurns "the venom of renown." The poet's muse might be compared in these respects to Socrates' philosophical muse. Socrates condemned the sophists and Stevens' queen rejects vices analogous to theirs in poetry. The dim view of renown poetically reinforces the Adagia dictum: "Poetry is, (and should be,) for the poet, a source of pleasure and satisfaction, not a source of honors."[2]

The use of the word 'near' is not idiosyncratic but purposeful. "Poetry is not personal," as Stevens writes in Adagia.[3] And the clearness is not too clear. The poet's musician resists the intellect, "saving a little to endow our feignings with the strange unlike." This is an expression of the Adagia thesis that poetry must resist the intelligence almost successfully.[4]

The poem concludes with a reminder of the musical imagist's serious purpose. The poetic musician wears a band "set with fatal stones." None of the foregoing proposes an identification of the poem's addressee (certainly not Socrates), a necessary first step in a defensible interpretation.

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ Butell, p. 245.
2. ^ Kermode and Richardson, p. 915.
3. ^ Kermode and Richardson, p. 902.
4. ^ Kermode and Richardson, p. 910.

## References

[edit]

* Buttel, Robert. Wallace Stevens: The Making of Harmonium. Princeton University Press, 1967.
* Kermode, Frank and Joan Richardson, Stevens: Collected Poetry and Prose. The Library of America, 1997.

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Harmonium by Wallace Stevens

* "Earthy Anecdote"
* "Invective Against Swans"
* "The Paltry Nude Starts on a Spring Voyage"
* "The Plot Against the Giant"
* "Infanta Marina"
* "Domination of Black"
* "The Snow Man"
* "The Ordinary Women"
* "The Load Of Sugar-Cane"
* "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle"
* "Nuances of a Theme by Williams"
* "Metaphors of a Magnifico"
* "Ploughing on Sunday"
* "Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et Les Unze Mille Vierges"
* "Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores"
* "Fabliau of Florida"
* "Doctor of Geneva"
* "Homunculus et la Belle Etoile"
* "The Comedian as the Letter C"
* "From the Misery of Don Joost"
* "O Florida, Venereal Soil"
* "Last Looks at the Lilacs"
* "The Worms at Heaven's Gate"
* "The Jack-Rabbit"
* "Valley Candle"
* "Anecdote of Men by the Thousand"
* "The Apostrophe to Vincentine"
* "Floral Decorations for Bananas"
* "Anecdote of Canna"
* "On the Manner of Addressing Clouds"
* "Of Heaven Considered as a Tomb "
* "Of the Surface of Things"
* "Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks"
* "A High-Toned Old Christian Woman"
* "The Place of the Solitaires"
* "The Weeping Burgher"
* "The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician"
* "Banal Sojourn"
* "Depression Before Spring"
* "The Emperor of Ice-Cream"
* "The Cuban Doctor"
* "Tea at the Palaz of Hoon"
* "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock"
* "Sunday Morning"
* "The Virgin Carrying a Lantern"
* "Stars at Tallapoosa"
* "Explanation"
* "Six Significant Landscapes"
* "Bantam in Pine-Woods"
* "Anecdote of the Jar"
* "Palace of the Babies"
* "Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs"
* "Jasmine's Beautiful Thoughts Underneath The Willow"
* "Cortège for Rosenbloom"
* "Tattoo"
* "The Bird with the Coppery, Keen Claws"
* "Life Is Motion"
* "The Wind Shifts"
* "Colloquy with a Polish Aunt"
* "Gubbinal"
* "Two Figures in Dense Violet Night"
* "Theory"
* "To the One of Fictive Music"
* "Hymn from a Watermelon Pavilion"
* "Peter Quince at the Clavier"
* "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
* "Nomad Exquisite"
* "The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad"
* "The Death of a Soldier"
* "Negation"
* "The Surprises of the Superhuman"
* "Sea Surface Full of Clouds"
* "The Revolutionists Stop for Orangeade"
* "Lunar Paraphrase"
* "Anatomy of Monotony"
* "The Public Square"
* "Indian River"
* "Tea"

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