I'll post one too.
This is the first Stevens poems I memorized, and definately one of my favorites.
Two Figures in Dense Violet Light
I had as lief be embraced by the porter at the hotel
As to get no more from the moonlight
Than your moist hand.
Be the voice of night and Florida in my ear.
Use dusky words and dusky images.
Darken your speech.
Speak, even, as if I did not hear you speaking,
But spoke for you perfectly in my thoughts,
Conceiving words,
As the night conceives the sea-sounds in silence,
And out of the droning sibilants makes
A serenade.
Say, puerile, that the buzzards crouch on the ridge-pole
And sleep with one eye watching the stars fall
Below Key West.
Say that the palms are clear in a total blue,
Are clear and are obscure; that it is night;
That the moon shines.
::EDIT:: You may notice that this poem is a little different from several online versions. I have taken it directly from The Palm at the End of the Mind, and not Harmonium. Holly Stevens makes no comments on the changes in this poem, but says in her preface: "Because no manuscript of poems that appeared in earlier books was submitted for Collected Poems, and because certain discrepancies in manuscript and magazine publication versions have not been resolved, minor changes have been made in punctuation, spelling, and line spacing without comment. Where more extensive vatriations occur, brief explanatory notes appear at the back of this book, although limitations of space preclude a full textual apparatus." ::/EDIT::
::Further Edit:: I have just checked Harmonium, and the only difference in my version is the title (Light/Night). There are a lot of online versions with "Beyond Key West,"(17 compared to the 7 you get when searching for the correct text). Does anyone know why this is? ::/Further Edit::
Two Figures in Dense Violet Light
I had as lief be embraced by the porter at the hotel
As to get no more from the moonlight
Than your moist hand.
Be the voice of night and Florida in my ear.
Use dusky words and dusky images.
Darken your speech.
Speak, even, as if I did not hear you speaking,
But spoke for you perfectly in my thoughts,
Conceiving words,
As the night conceives the sea-sounds in silence,
And out of the droning sibilants makes
A serenade.
Say, puerile, that the buzzards crouch on the ridge-pole
And sleep with one eye watching the stars fall
Below Key West.
Say that the palms are clear in a total blue,
Are clear and are obscure; that it is night;
That the moon shines.
::EDIT:: You may notice that this poem is a little different from several online versions. I have taken it directly from The Palm at the End of the Mind, and not Harmonium. Holly Stevens makes no comments on the changes in this poem, but says in her preface: "Because no manuscript of poems that appeared in earlier books was submitted for Collected Poems, and because certain discrepancies in manuscript and magazine publication versions have not been resolved, minor changes have been made in punctuation, spelling, and line spacing without comment. Where more extensive vatriations occur, brief explanatory notes appear at the back of this book, although limitations of space preclude a full textual apparatus." ::/EDIT::
::Further Edit:: I have just checked Harmonium, and the only difference in my version is the title (Light/Night). There are a lot of online versions with "Beyond Key West,"(17 compared to the 7 you get when searching for the correct text). Does anyone know why this is? ::/Further Edit::