Harmonium (Stevens)/Architecture

by Wallace Stevens

Architecture

IWhat manner of building shall we build?Let us design a chastel de chasteté.De pensée. . . .Never cease to deploy the structure.Keep the laborers shouldering plinths.Pass the whole of life earing the clink of theChisels of the stone-cutters cutting the stones.

IIIn this house, what manner of utterance shall there be?What heavenly dithyrambAnd cantilene?What niggling forms of gargoyle patter?Of what shall the speech be,In that splay of marbleAnd of obedient pillars?

IIIAnd how shall those come vested that come there?In their ugly reminders?Or gaudy as tulips?As they climb the stairs To the group of Flora Coddling Hecuba?As they climb the flightsTo the closesOverlooking whole seasons?

IVLet us build the building of light.Push up the towersTo the cock-tops.These are the pointings of our edifice,Which, like a gorgeous palm,Shall tuft the commonplace.These are the window-sillOn which the quiet moonlight lies.

VHow shall we hew the sun,Split it and make blocks,To build a ruddy palace?How carve the violet moonTo set in nicks?Let us fix portals, east and west,Abhorring green-blue north and blue-green south.Our chiefest dome a demoiselle of gold.Pierce the interior with pouring shafts,In diverse chambers.Pierce, too, with buttresses of coral airAnd purple timbers,Various argentines,Embossings of the sky.

VIAnd, finally, set guardians in the grounds,Gray, gruesome grumblers.For no one proud, nor stiff,No solemn one, nor pale,No chafferer, may comeTo sully the begonias, nor vexWith holy or sublime adoThe kremlin of kermess.

VIIOnly the lusty and the plenteousShall walkThe bronze-filled plazasAnd the nut-shell esplanades.