Sonnet: "If we are leaves that fall"

Listen to:

Sonnet: "If we are leaves that fall" (:55)

by Wallace Stevens 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

If we are leaves that fall upon the ground

To lose our greenness in the quiet dust

Of forest-depths; if we are flowers that must

Lie torn and creased upon a bitter mound,

No touch of sweetness in our ruins found;

If we are weeds whom no one wise can trust

To live an hour before we feel the gust

Of Death, and by our side its last, keen sound;

Then let a tremor through our briefness run,

Wrapping it in with mad, sweet sorcery

Of love; for in the fern I saw the sun

Take fire against the dew; the lily white

Was soft and deep at morn; the rosary

Streamed forth a wild perfume into the light.

First published in:

The Harvard Monthly, XXVIII (Mar. 1899)