Illustration

The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician

The Problem of Life is old. I have endeavored to approach it afresh, with a new method, in a new spirit, from a new point of view.

The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician
Wallace Stevens
1919

It comes about that the drifting of these curtains
Is full of long motions, as the ponderous
Deflations of distance; or as clouds
Inseparable from their afternoons;
Or the changing of light, the dropping
Of the silence, wide sleep and solitude
Of night, in which all motion
Is beyond us, as the firmament,
Up-rising and down-falling, bares
The last largeness, bold to see.