Analysis of Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself

Wallace Stevens 1879 (Reading) – 1955 (Hartford)



At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.

He knew that he heard it,
A bird's cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow...
It would have been outside.

It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep's faded papier-mache...
The sun was coming from the outside.

That scrawny cry--It was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,

Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.


Scheme ABC XXC XXB XXB XAX XXX
Poetic Form
Metre 1010010110 010101111 1101011 111111 01111101 001011 0111011 11001001011 111111 1111011 1110101 011101011 110111 0111010010 111100101 01011101 1101111 0110110
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 584
Words 110
Sentences 10
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3
Lines Amount 18
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 75
Words per stanza (avg) 18
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 24, 2023

33 sec read
229

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. more…

All Wallace Stevens poems | Wallace Stevens Books

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