Two Figures in Dense Violet Night
I had as lief be embraced by the porter at the hotelAs to get no more from the moonlightThan your moist hand.
Be the voice of night and Florida in my ear.Use dusky words and dusky images.Darken your speech.
Speak, even, as if I did not hear you speaking,But spoke for you perfectly in my thoughts,Conceiving words,
As the night conceives the sea-sounds in silence,And out of their droning sibilants makesA serenade.
Say, puerile, that the buzzards crouch on the ridge-poleAnd sleep with one eye watching the stars fallBelow Key West.
Say that the palms are clear in a total blue,Are clear and are obscure; that it is night;That the moon shines.
Words in this poem
- spoke n.
- The radius or ray of a wheel; one of the small bars which are inserted in the hub, or nave, and which serve to support the rim or felly. [OE. spoke, spake, AS, spaca; akin to D. speek, LG. speke, OHG. speihha, G. speiche. sq. root170. Cf. Spike a nail.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Two Figures in Dense Violet Night is in the public domain. This text is taken from Harmonium, Project Gutenberg ebook #78743; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Wallace Stevens, Two Figures in Dense Violet Night, in Harmonium (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #78743, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stevens-harmonium/two-figures-in-dense-violet-night.html, id L01069.
Form and metre
Two Figures in Dense Violet Night is 18 lines in 6 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter. 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.6 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 28% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter, other poems in blank verse.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I had as lief be embraced by the porter at the hotel | 15 | ·····˘/··/˘··˘/ |
| As to get no more from the moonlight | 9 | ·······/· |
| Than your moist hand. | 4 | ···· |
| Be the voice of night and Florida in my ear. | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| Use dusky words and dusky images. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘˘ |
| Darken your speech. | 4 | /˘·· |
| Speak, even, as if I did not hear you speaking, | 11 | ·/·······/˘ |
| But spoke for you perfectly in my thoughts, | 10 | ····/˘˘··· |
| Conceiving words, | 4 | ˘/˘· |
| As the night conceives the sea-sounds in silence, | 11 | ···˘/····/˘ |
| And out of their droning sibilants makes | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| A serenade. | 4 | ··˘/ |
| Say, puerile, that the buzzards crouch on the ridge-pole | 12 | ·˘/··/˘····· |
| And sleep with one eye watching the stars fall | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Below Key West. | 4 | ···· |
| Say that the palms are clear in a total blue, | 11 | ········/˘· |
| Are clear and are obscure; that it is night; | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| That the moon shines. | 4 | ···· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.