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“The Pediment of Appearance” by Wallace Stevens 🇺🇸 (2 Oct 1879 – 2 Aug 1955)
Young men go walking in the woods,
Hunting for the great ornament,
The pediment of appearance.
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They hunt for a form which by its form alone,
Without diamond—blazons or flashing or
Chains of circumstance,
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By its form alone, by being right,
By being high, is the stone
For which they are looking:
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The savage transparence. They go crying
The world is myself, life is myself,
Breathing as if they breathed themselves,
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Full of their ugly lord,
Speaking the phrases that follow the sight
Of this essential omament
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In the woods, in this full-blown May,
The months of understanding. The pediment
Lifts up its heavy scowl before them.