Sunday, March 2, 2008

Wallace Stevens

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THE BLUE GUITAR

The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, ‘You have a blue guitar,
You cannot play things as they are.’

The man replied, ‘Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.’

And they said then,
‘But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are.’

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