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Raise reddest columns. Toll a bell
And clap the hollows full of tin.
Throw papers in the streets, the wills
Of the dead, majestic in their seals.
And the beautiful trombones -- behold
The approach of him whom none believes,
Whom all believe that all believe,
A pagan in a varnished car.
Roll a drum upon the blue guitar.
Lean from the steeple. Cry aloud,
"Here am I, my adversary, that
Confront you, hoo-ing the slick trombones,
Yet with a petty misery
At heart, a petty misery,
Ever the prelude to your end,
The touch that topples men and rock."
---
Wallace Stevens
from The Man with the Blue Guitar, 1937
from The Man with the Blue Guitar, 1937
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]
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