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by Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)

Continual Conversation with a Silent Man
Language: English 
Choose for Diff
The old brown hen and the old blue sky,
Between the two we live and die--
The broken cartwheel on the hill.

As if, in the presence of the sea,
We dried our nets and mended sail
And talked of never-ending things,

Of the never-ending storm of will,
One will and many wills, and the wind,
Of many meanings in the leaves,

Brought down to one below the eaves,
Link, of that tempest, to the farm,
The chain of the turquoise hen and sky

And the wheel that broke as the cart went by.
It is not a voice that is under the eaves.
It is not speech, the sound we hear

In this conversation, but the sound
Of things and their motion: the other man,
A turquoise monster moving round.

Text Authorship:

  • by Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955), "Continual Conversation with a Silent Man" [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Lee Hoiby (1926 - 2011), "Continual Conversation with a Silent Man", op. 39 no. 3, published 1983, from O Florida, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2005-12-07
Line count: 18
Word count: 131

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