Poem of the Day

I am going to start a new feature, in which I post a poem every day. I have been meaning to read more poetry lately and simply haven’t had the time, so this will give me an incentive, and hopefully brighten your day. I have some new things in the works but other duties call me at the moment, so I hope you will be patient, dear readers. And in the meantime, enjoy the poetry. -Darrick

A little less returned for him each spring.
Music began to fail him. Brahms, although
His dark familiar, often walked apart.

His spirit grew uncertain of delight,
Uncertain of its certainty, in which
That dark companion left him unconsoled

For a self returning mostly memory.
Only last year he said that the naked moon
Was not the moon he used to see, to feel

(In the pale coherences of moon and mood
When he was young), naked and alien,
More leanly shining from a lanky sky.

Its ruddy pallor had grown cadaverous.
He used his reason, exercised his will,
Turning in time to Brahms as alternate

In speech. He was that music and himself.
They were particles of order, a single majesty:
But he remembered the time he stood alone.

He stood at last by God's help and the police;
But he remembered the time he stood alone.
He yielded himself to that single majesty;

But he remembered the time he stood alone,
When to be and delight to be seemed to be one, 
Before the colors deepened and grew small. 

—Wallace Stevens, “Anglais Mort a Florence,” The Collected Poems, pp. 148-49