From an Ordinary Evening in New Haven (Sections: I, IX, XI, XII)

Lyrics

The eye's plain version is a thing apart, The vulgate of experience. Of this, A few words, an And as yet, the vulgate of experience. Of this, A few words, an And as yet, and yet, and yet— In the land of the lemon trees, yellow and yellow were Yellow-blue, yellow-green, pungent with citron-sap, Dangling and spangling, the mic-mac of mocking birds. In the land of the elm trees, wandering mariners Looked on big women, whose ruddy-ripе images Wreathed round and round thе round wreath of autumn. They rolled their r's, there, in the land of the citrons. In the land of big mariners, the words they spoke Were mere brown clods, mere catching weeds of talk. When the mariners came to the land of the lemon trees, At last, in that blond atmosphere, bronzed hard, They said, "We are back once more in the land of the elm trees, But folded over, turned round." It was the same, Except for the adjectives, an alteration Of words that was a change of nature, more Than the difference that clouds make over a town. The countrymen were changed and each constant thing. Their dark-colored words had redescribed the citrons. The poem is the cry of its occasion, Part of the res itself and not about it. The poet speaks the poem as it is, Not as it was: part of the reverberation Of a windy night as it is, when the marble statues Are like newspapers blown by the wind. He speaks By sight and insight as they are. There is no Tomorrow for him. The wind will have passed by, The statues will have gone back to be things about. The mobile and immobile flickering In the area between is and was are leaves, Leaves burnished in autumnal burnished trees And leaves in whirlings in the gutters, whirlings Around and away, resembiling the presence of thought Resembling the presences of thoughts, as if, In the end, in the whole psychology, the self, the town, the weather, in a casual litter, Together, said words of the world are the life of the world.