"What Syllable Are You Seeking, Vocalissimus, In The Distances Of Sleep?"

A few poems onward from "The Wind Shifts," Wallace Stevens again considers the wind in the poem that brings Harmonium to a close. Although the poem is brief, it encapsulates a recurring theme in Stevens's poetry: how do we make our way in a World (or, as Stevens preferred, in a Reality) that is beautiful, but mute?

     To the Roaring Wind

What syllable are you seeking,
Vocalissimus,
In the distances of sleep?
Speak it.

Wallace Stevens, Harmonium (1923).

This brings to mind a poem by Robert Nye about the wind, and its words.

     Words on the Wind

I heard a voice calling
"Do not be afraid
For blessed is he
Who is what he was
Before he was made."

They came on the wind
Those singular words
And on the wind went.
Perhaps all it was
Was the calling of birds?

Perhaps all there is
Is the calling of birds
As they're blown on the wind
And we just mistake it
For singular words?

God knows I don't know
But now night is falling
I am what I was
Before I was made,
And this is my calling.

Robert Nye, The Rain and the Glass: 99 Poems, New and Selected (Greenwich Exchange 2005).

                         Eric Ravilious, "Two Women in a Garden" (1933)