The Snow Man

Wallace Stevens 1879 (Reading) – 1955 (Hartford)



One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 22, 2023

32 sec read
170

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABC XXA XDX XDXCBX
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 533
Words 109
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 3, 3, 3, 6

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. more…

All Wallace Stevens poems | Wallace Stevens Books

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