“Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.”
"Sunday Morning"
Harmonium (1923)
Context: We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or an old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.
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Wallace Stevens 278
American poet 1879–1955Related quotes
“Not every pigeon is a rat with wings. Not every rat with wings is a dove of peace.”
“Like a trembling hind pursued by a Hyrcanian tigress, or like a pigeon that checks her flight when she sees a hawk in the sky, or like a hare that dives into the thicket at sight of the eagle hovering with outstretched wings in the cloudless sky.”
...ceu tigride cerva
Hyrcana cum pressa tremit, vel territa pennas
colligit accipitrem cernens in nube columba,
aut dumis subit, albenti si sensit in aethra
librantem nisus aquilam, lepus.
Book V, lines 280–284
Punica
“Man is the nobler growth our realms supply,
And souls are ripened in our northern sky.”
The Invitation.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“The animals laugh from the dark of the wilderness.”
Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)
