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“The Beginning” by Wallace Stevens 🇺🇸 (2 Oct 1879 – 2 Aug 1955)
So summer comes in the end to these few stains
And the rust and rot of the door through which she went.
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The house is empty. But here is where she sat
To comb her dewy hair, a touchless light,
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Perplexed by its darker iridescences.
This was the glass in which she used to look
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At the moment’s being, without history,
The self of summer perfectly perceived,
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And feel its country gayety and smile
And be surprised and tremble, hand and lip.
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This is the chair from which she gathered up
Her dress, the carefulest, commodious weave
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Inwoven by a weaver to twelve bells …
The dress is lying, cast-off, on the floor.
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Now, the first tutoyers of tragedy
Speak softly, to begin with, in the eaves.