Esthétique du Mal

The moment of the great tropics returns, Night descends to the crescent rise, Of thoughts grow slow, the pinion rising, The world, stilled in the forest of the trees– The moment of tension, neither staying, nor going – that is where beauty lies For that causes the voice.

And while the blight moves, I hear her mother talking, Made up from many forms, The things that hold all noise, The silence of the stars, Are no longer brave:

The pain may not beautify, No longer gold, but gray, Lives that are still meant to be Beyond the hour of the self The high summer moment.

Life that is but The elements outside attends In the desire of all things, The parts that move; a face, And they only hold together, Where a voice grows slowly.

— Wallace Stevens, “Esthétique du Mal”

• Wallace Stevens