Wallace Stevens - Homunculus et La Belle Etoile lyrics

In the sea, Biscayne, there prinks The young emerald, evening star— Good light for drunkards, poets, widows, And ladies soon to be married. By this light the salty fishes Arch in the sea like tree-branches, Going in many directions Up and down. This light conducts The thoughts of drunkards, the feelings Of widows and trembling ladies, The movements of fishes. How pleasant an existence it is That this emerald charms philosophers, Until they become thoughtlessly willing To bathe their hearts in later moonlight, Knowing that they can bring back thought In the night that is still to be silent, Reflecting this thing and that, Before they sleep. It is better that, as scholars, They should think hard in the dark cuffs Of voluminous cloaks, And shave their heads and bodies. It might well be that their mistress Is no gaunt fugitive phantom. She might, after all, be a wanton, Abundantly beautiful, eager. Fecund, From whose being by starlight, on sea-coast, The innermost good of their seeking Might come in the simplest of speech. It is a good light, then, for those That know the ultimate Plato, Tranquillizing with this j**el The torments of confusion.