The Poem That Took The Place Of A Mountain

Wallace Stevens 1879 (Reading) – 1955 (Hartford)



There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.

He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.

It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction,

How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,

For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:

The exact rock where his inexactness
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

33 sec read
104

Quick analysis:

Scheme XA AX XA BX XA BX XX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 586
Words 113
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. more…

All Wallace Stevens poems | Wallace Stevens Books

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