Wallace Stevens

Mandolins and Liqueurs

La-La! The cat is in the violets
And the awnings are let down.
The cat should not be where she is
And the awnings are too brown,
Emphatically so.

If awnings were celeste and gay,
Iris and orange, crimson and green,
Blue and vermilion, purple and white,
And not this tinsmith's galaxy,
Things would be different.

The sun is gold, the moon is silver,
There must be a planet that is copper
And in whose light the roses
Would have a most singular appearance,
Or nearly so.

I love to sit and read the Telegraph,
That vast confect of telegrams,
And to find out how much that really matters
Does not really matter
At all.

The title of the poem is Mandolin and Liqueurs

Another typo. "Gay" should be gray.

I've read and re-read this, and I haven't found any connection to a mandolin. I'll wager some liqueurs may well have aided in its creation, though. :whistling:

Then there is this nice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqBw0ztIqc8

And who is Wallace Stevens ?

Dave H

American poet. Active 1920s-1940s. Pulitzer Prize winner in 1955. Not a mandolinist. Was a bit of a tippler. :whistling:

Thank you for sharing this. Wallace Stevens is a favorite.

I'm a poet.
I know it.
Hope I don't blow it.

--Bob Dylan.

Wallace Stevens was born in 1879 and died in 1955, the same years for Einstein. Which leads me to a joke.
Einstein was playing the violin with a string quartet and it wasn't going very well.
So the leader of the quartet said to Einstein: "Einstein what is the matter? Can't you count?!!!