The Motive for Metaphor

THE MOTIVE FOR METAPHOR

You like it under the trees of autumn,

Because everything is half dead.

The wind moves like a cripple among the leaves

And repeats words without meaning.

In the same way, you were happy in the spring,

With the half colors of quarter-things,

The slightly brighter sky, the melting clouds,

The single bird, the obscure moon -

The obscure moon lighting an obscure world

Of things that would never be quite expressed,

Where you yourself were never quite yourself

And did not want nor have to be,

Desiring the exhilarations of changes:

The motive for metaphor, shrinking from

The weight of primary noon,

The A B C of being,

The ruddy temper, the hammer

Of red and blue, the hard sound -

Steel against intimation - the sharp flash,

The vital, arrogant, fatal, dominant X.

This poem is about what it claims to be: "the motive for metaphor". Mr. Stevens proposes that the hidden reason to make these comparisons of the imagination is the joy and excitement of change. All of the images and statements in the opening four stanzas confirm this theme. Nature is shown to be cripple with a mumbling, pointless voice. And he drops small images of these instants of joyous change as Salvador Dali(a contemporary) drops related images into his paintings.

However, in the last stanza we see a shift to an image of a blacksmith at his forge , perhaps a poet, hammering out and shaping his medium, stamping it with his mark. Metaphor in action for the poet.