by Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)
A clear day and no memories
Language: English
No soldiers in the scenery, No thoughts of people now dead, As they were fifty years ago, Young and living in a live air, Young and walking in the sunshine, Bending in blue dresses to touch something, Today the mind is not part of the weather. Today the air is clear of everything. It has no knowledge except of nothingness And it flows over us without meanings, As if none of us had ever been here before And are not now: in this shallow spectacle, This invisible activity, this sense.
Authorship:
- by Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955), "A clear day and no memories", appears in The Palm at the End of the Mind [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 Ned Rorem (1923 - 2022), "A clear day and no memories", 1972, first performed 1972 [ soprano, cello, and piano ], from Last Poems of Wallace Stevens, no. 7 [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2010-11-03
Line count: 13
Word count: 90