[New-Poetry] note from Stevens' journal

[Anny Ballardini]

"The priest worshipped Mercy and Love; the poet, Beauty and Might."

Clearly stated. There is a young voice in this writing. I did not read the date or the subject, it could have been an entry on a blog.

From: JforJames at aol.com 
  Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2007 8:27 PM

  I ran across this on the net, and thought I'd post it to the list...

  From his Journal -- Sunday, August 10, 1902 [New York}

  I've had a handsome day of it and am contented again. Left the house after breakfast and went by ferry and trolley to Hackensack over in Jersey. From H. I walked 5 1/2 miles on the Spring Valley road, then 4 miles to Ridgewood, then another mile to Hoboken and back towards town 7 miles more to Paterson: 17 1/2 in all, a good day's jaunt at this time of the year. Came from Paterson to Hoboken by trolley and then home. In the early part of the day I saw some very respectable country which, as usual, set me contemplating. I love to walk along with a slight wind playing in the trees about me and think over a thousand and one odds and ends. Last night I spent an hour in the dark transept of St. Patrick's Cathedral where I go now and then in my more lonely moods. An old argument with me is that the true religious force in the world is not the church, but the world itself: the mysterious callings of Nature and our responses. What incessant murmurs fill that ever-laboring, tireless church! But to-day in my walk I thought that after all there is no conflict of forces but rather a contrast. In the cathedral I felt one presence; on the highway I felt another. Two different deities presented themselves; and though I have only cloudy visions of either, yet I now feel the distinction between them. The priest in me worshipped one God at one shrine; the poet another God at another shrine. The priest worshipped Mercy and Love; the poet, Beauty and Might. In the shadows of the church I could hear the prayers of men and women; in the shadows of the trees nothing human mingled with Divinity. As I sat dreaming with the Congregation I felt how the glittering alter worked on my senses stimulating and consoling them; and as I went tramping through the fields and woods I beheld every leaf and blade of grass revealing or rather betokening the Invisible.


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