The Beginning

--Wallace Stevens

So summer comes in the end to these few stains

And the rust and rot of the door through which she

     went.

The house is empty. But here is where she sat

To comb her dewy hair, a touchless light,

Perplexed by its darker iridescences.

This was the glass in which she used to look

At the moment’s being, without history,

The self of summer perfectly perceived,

And feel its country gayety and smile

And be surprised and tremble, hand and lip.

This is the chair from which she gathered up

Her dress, the carefulest, commodious weave

Inwoven by a weaver to twelve bells …

The dress is lying, cast-off, on the floor.

Now, the first tutoyers of tragedy

Speak softly, to begin with, in the eaves.