The Man with the Blue Guitar (II)

II

I cannot bring a world quite round,
Although I patch it as I can.

I sing a hero's head, large eye
And bearded bronze, but not a man,

Although I patch him as I can
And reach through him almost to man.

If to serenade almost to man
Is to miss, by that, things as they are,

Say that it is the serenade
Of a man that plays a blue guitar.

---

Wallace Stevens
from The Man with the Blue Guitar, 1937

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Read the complete poem here.

Wallace Stevens biography