Nuances of a Theme by Williams

"Nuances of a Theme by Williams" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium.

Nuances of a Theme by Williams  It's a strange courage  You give me, ancient star:  Shine alone in the sunrise  toward which you lend no part!   I  Shine alone, shine nakedly, shine like bronze  that reflects neither my face nor any inner part  of my being, shine like fire, that mirrors nothing.  II  Lend no part to any humanity that suffuses  you in its own light.  Be not chimera of morning,  Half-man, half-star.  Be not an intelligence,  Like a widow's bird  Or an old horse.

The italicized first lines make up a poem, "El Hombre", by Stevens' modernist contemporary William Carlos Williams. Stevens' own work, parts I and II, can be read as an ironic commentary, mocking the grandiose detachment implied by Williams's precious connection to the remote and infertile star. He compares that star unfavorably with our "half-man, half-star" sun, which nurtures the earth, even in a widow's bird or an old horse, and engages the imagination of humanity — not only the "heroic" poet who would stand apart. The irony here bears comparison to the treatment of the soul's aspiration to high flight in "Invective against Swans". Stevens' preference for a poetry that reflects "my face" and "my inner being" can also be detected in "Metaphors of a Magnifico".