"The Idea of Order at Key West" by Wallace Stevens

The Idea of Order at Key West
by Wallace Stevens

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,	5
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard.	10
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.	15
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.	20

If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,	25
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,	30
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.	35
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,	40
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,	45
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.	50

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker’s rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.	55



genius — used in the original sense of a spirit, not an unusually intelligent person. The latter meaning developed out of the former one. People used to say a person had a genius for something, meaning that a person had a talent. This idea derives from the idea that a talent comes from being aided by spiritual forces; the nine muses of Greek mythology are one example.

Ramon Fernandez — A well-known French literary critic and author at the time Stevens wrote the poem was named Ramon Fernandez (1894-1944, his name is Spanish because his father was Spanish). His criticism stressed how the author’s consciousness imposes order on his materials. Stevens admitted in two letters that he knew who Fernandez was and had read him, but said he did not have him in mind when he composed the poem and had just picked two common names at random. However, given the apparent relevance of Fernandez’s ideas to the poem, this is a problematic claim. A possible explanation is that Fernandez became a fascist and collaborated with the Nazis when they conquered France. Had he not died of a pulmonary embolism, he would likely have been put on trial after the war. Stevens would understandably have not wanted to associate his poem with fascism.