Depression Before Spring
"Depression Before Spring" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923). It was first published in 1918[1] and is therefore in the public domain.
The cock crows
But no queen rises.
The hair of my blonde
Is dazzling,
As the spittle of cows
Threading the wind.
Ho! Ho!
But ki-ki-ri-ki
Brings no rou-cou,
No rou-cou-cou.
But no queen comes
In slipper green.
Interpretation
In his 1968 book for Princeton University Press, Buttel remarks, "One would not expect such lyrical delicacy from the Imagist use of the spittle of cows."[2] Its finding beauty in seemingly ordinary or earthy physical details puts him in mind of Whitman's "Song of Myself" and the line from its thirty-first canto: "And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue". Stevens's concern about the sound of the poem is evident here, as in "The Comedian as the Letter C", where, among other things, he was exploring the different effects of the letter "c" in English. Here he invokes nonsense lines, suggesting the call-and-response of mating birds, to achieve the desired effect.
One reason why Stevens might flout Victorian poetic conventions about treatment of spring is suggested by Bates, one of whose themes is the importance of appreciating Stevens the American burgher. He relates an anecdote about Stevens writing to William Carlos Williams, quoting Stevens about the pleasures of a season in Nashville, where he was then staying.
I spare you the whole-souled burblings in the park, the leaves, lilacs, tulips, and so on. Such things are unmanly and non-Prussian and, of course, a fellow must pooh-pooh something, even if it happens to be something he rather fancies, you know.[3]
See also "Indian River" for another downbeat take on spring mixed with memorable images.
Notes
References
- Buttel, R. Wallace Stevens: The Making of Harmonium. 1968: Princeton University Press.
- Bates, M. Wallace Stevens: A Mythology of Self. 1985: University of California Press.
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- "Earthy Anecdote"
- "Invective Against Swans"
- "The Paltry Nude Starts on a Spring Voyage"
- "The Plot Against the Giant"
- "Infanta Marina"
- "Domination of Black"
- "The Snow Man"
- "The Ordinary Women"
- "The Load Of Sugar-Cane"
- "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle"
- "Nuances of a Theme by Williams"
- "Metaphors of a Magnifico"
- "Ploughing on Sunday"
- "Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et Les Unze Mille Vierges"
- "Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores"
- "Fabliau of Florida"
- "Doctor of Geneva"
- "Homunculus et la Belle Etoile"
- "The Comedian as the Letter C"
- "From the Misery of Don Joost"
- "O Florida, Venereal Soil"
- "Last Looks at the Lilacs"
- "The Worms at Heaven's Gate"
- "The Jack-Rabbit"
- "Valley Candle"
- "Anecdote of Men by the Thousand"
- "The Apostrophe to Vincentine"
- "Floral Decorations for Bananas"
- "Anecdote of Canna"
- "On the Manner of Addressing Clouds"
- "Of Heaven Considered as a Tomb "
- "Of the Surface of Things"
- "Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks"
- "A High-Toned Old Christian Woman"
- "The Place of the Solitaires"
- "The Weeping Burgher"
- "The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician"
- "Banal Sojourn"
- "Depression Before Spring"
- "The Emperor of Ice-Cream"
- "The Cuban Doctor"
- "Tea at the Palaz of Hoon"
- "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock"
- "Sunday Morning"
- "The Virgin Carrying a Lantern"
- "Stars at Tallapoosa"
- "Explanation"
- "Six Significant Landscapes"
- "Bantam in Pine-Woods"
- "Anecdote of the Jar"
- "Palace of the Babies"
- "Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs"
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- "Cortège for Rosenbloom"
- "Tattoo"
- "The Bird with the Coppery, Keen Claws"
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- "The Wind Shifts"
- "Colloquy with a Polish Aunt"
- "Gubbinal"
- "Two Figures in Dense Violet Night"
- "Theory"
- "To the One of Fictive Music"
- "Hymn from a Watermelon Pavilion"
- "Peter Quince at the Clavier"
- "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
- "Nomad Exquisite"
- "The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad"
- "The Death of a Soldier"
- "Negation"
- "The Surprises of the Superhuman"
- "Sea Surface Full of Clouds"
- "The Revolutionists Stop for Orangeade"
- "Lunar Paraphrase"
- "Anatomy of Monotony"
- "The Public Square"
- "Indian River"
- "Tea"