Hi Chris,
Ideas of Order is one of my favorite books, and I think most of the poems maintain the thematic of natural order. The operative is “I think”, because I don’t have a paraphrased Rosetta Stone in mind for any of Stevens’ poems, nor do I think that sort of thing necessary or desirable.
But, when I realize the speaker in the poem is autumn, and that the symbolism has at its base refrain, as a referent, the lines become less distracting in terms of unity and coherent thematic. To me, it’s autumn’s lament of never knowing the nightingale, a symbol for sweetness in music and life, a burgeoning and procreation—things autumn as a season will never know, or night, visionary imagination (Shelley, Keats, Hardy, Coleridge) and the nursing mother (Florence) (earth), which are immediately transferable to the human condition via refrain, and kin to our never knowing truth because the “mind is smaller than the eye”: Steven’s more than rational distortion.
I find the verses in Ideas of Order are Steven’s most lucid in describing his worldview. The above is my interpretation only—of course—and may be simplistic in its brevity. For example, the myriad symbolism of the Nightingale and the moon could take paragraph upon paragraph to reach the ultimate point of confusion and futility in interpretation, so here brevity is a high virtue.
BT
[This message has been edited by Brett Thibault (edited December 15, 2001).]
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