"Of Heaven Considered as a Tomb" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923). It was first published in 1921, so it is in the public domain.
Of Heaven Considered as a Tomb
What word have you, interpreters, of men |
This is a poem about the other side of death, optimistically halloo'ing the departed ("the darkened ghosts") for news that they are still "about and still about", pessimistically anticipating that the burials that occur each day are a portal into nothingness, "the one abysmal night". It may be compared with "The Worms at Heaven's Gate", which presents death more naturalistically.
That interpretation plays a language game, but not the one Stevens invites readers to play by asking "What word have you, interpreters...?"
Famous quotes containing the words heaven, considered and/or tomb:
“If it were not for the intellectual snobs who payin solid cashthe tribute which philistinism owes to culture, the arts would perish with their starving practitioners. Let us thank heaven for hypocrisy.”
—Aldous Huxley (18941963)
“Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“Some sepulcher, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She neer shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (18091849)