Do you remember Honey-melon moon Dripping thick sweet light Where Canal Street saunters off by herself among quiet trees? And the faint decayed patchouli— Fragrance of New Orleans ... New Orleans, Like a dead tube rose Upheld in the warm air ... Miraculously whole. WIND IN THE ALLEYS Wind, rising in the alleys, My spirit lifts in you like a banner streaming free of hot walls. You are full of unshaped dreams ... You are laden with beginnings ... There is hope in you ... not sweet ... acrid as blood in the mouth. Come into my tossing dust Scattering the peace of old deaths, Wind rising out of the alleys Carrying stuff of flame. _Wallace Stevens_ Wallace Stevens, of Hartford, Connecticut, is a poet whose peculiar quality is only exceeded by his reticence. He has scrupulously kept out of the public eye, has printed his poetry only at rare intervals and, though much of his work has been highly praised, has steadfastly refused to publish a volume. Stevens’s best work may be found in the three _Others_ anthologies, edited by Alfred Kreymborg. Some of it is penetrative, more than a little is puzzling and all of it is provocative. In spite of what seems a weary disdain, Stevens is a more than skilful decorator and, like T. S. Eliot, combines irony and glamour in a highly original idiom. PETER QUINCE AT THE CLAVIER I Just as my fingers on these keys Make music, so the self-same sounds On my spirit make a music, too. Music is feeling, then, not sound; And thus it is that what I feel, Here in this room, desiring you, Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk, Is music. It is like the strain Waked in the elders by Susanna: Of a green evening, clear and warm, She bathed in her still garden, while The red-eyed elders, watching, felt The basses of their beings throb In witching chords, and their thin blood Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna. II In the green water, clear and warm, Susanna lay, She searched The touch of springs, And found Concealed imaginings. She sighed, For so much melody. Upon the bank, she stood In the cool Of spent emotions. She felt, among the leaves, The dew Of old devotions.