Literature is one of my joys, and I am particularly drawn to poetry, reading at least a few lines each day if possible. A well-wrought poem is always a pleasure; for the proficient, adept poet, I have unabashed admiration and respect.

Wallace Stevens is one my favorite poets ...

Xan.
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The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm
- Wallace Stevens

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

thanks Xanthippe! Very soothing and well-written selection.

Xan, W Stevens' poem describes perfectly well how it is when I read Dickens and Dylan Thomas, two of so many I admire.

Xan, thank you for the poem.

I'm a poem nut too. Have you read Mountain Ashe's poems? They are quite beautiful.

Hello and what a powful name Xanithippe

I like soothing poems and agree with Lola Dylan Thomas (such rythmn)
I will save Sunday evening as a bookmark..I feel then is a quiet time and special for us here.
Thank you.
Mountain ash

MA, we attended a reading of Dylan Thomas in Laurghne year before last. To hear "Under Milk Wood" read by a Welshman was most captivating.

Yes, "soothing" is indeed an apt descriptor of this poem, meredithbead. I have unbridled admiration for the way you poets use such memorable language to evoke mood, sensation, an experience long past.