Final Soliloquy Of The Interior Paramour

Light the first light of evening, as in a room
In which we rest and, for small reason, think
The world imagined is the ultimate good.

This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous.
It is in that thought that we collect ourselves,
Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:

Within a single thing, a single shawl
Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth,
A light, a power, the miraculous influence.

Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves.
We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,
A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.

Within its vital boundary, in the mind.
We say God and the imagination are one…
How high that highest candle lights the dark.

Out of this same light, out of the central mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which being there together is enough.

Analysis, meaning and summary of Wallace Stevens's poem Final Soliloquy Of The Interior Paramour

2 Comments

  1. John says:

    What a remarkable poem! It so perfectly expresses the gathering of good friends. It’s warm yet profound and somehow oddly comforting. If I had to offer any issue at all it must be with only the title. And to think I would have passed it up!

  2. Jackie Engle says:

    I don’t really agree with the last line of the first stanza but in the 3rd stanza’s last kline I think it really comes clean with the way people really feel and it really is a good picture

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