Sunday Morning

Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, This is the essence of beauty, to find Not in your own words. We stand away from her, away Completely: on the crow. Not opulent Only warmed, and awed, profound, By the idea and the office, And the sun masked against a school of mountains, With the green visible.

Come, all of you! In the night behind the smile, disappear All away, and wash the sky To make it brighter in the space All alone on Sunday morning, Behind trees of the palm.

And in the night knits together Some brilliance, no invocation, Known beneath the bright crowns, The questions have no weight, The sorrow left remains, Indeed of the order, of the order from the sky.

— Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morning”

• Wallace Stevens