Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
A bird's cry in early spring signals change and connects outside sound to inner thought.
In plain terms
He heard a bird cry outside and felt it in his mind.
What can you take from it?
Nature sounds can trigger internal thoughts.

Where it applies

  • daily life
  • nature observation

Putting it to work

  • listen to nature
  • note internal reactions

Questions to consider

  • When did nature speak to you?
  • How do sounds change your mood?

Another view

It interprets natural sound as internal.

More from Wallace Stevens

  1. Our own time, and by this I mean the last two or three generations, including our own, can be summed up in a way that brings into unity an immense number of de…

    Permalink to quote #193
  2. That scrawny cry - It was A chorister whose c preceded the choir. It was part of the colossal sun, Surrounded by its choral rings, Still far away. It was like …

    Permalink to quote #195
  3. The paramount relation between poetry and painting today, between modern man and modern art, is simply this: that in an age in which disbelief is so profoundly…

    Permalink to quote #192

Related quotes

  1. External nature is only internal nature writ large.

    Swami VivekanandaSwami Vivekananda quote #18
  2. Say what some poets will, Nature is not so much her own ever-sweet interpreter, as the mere supplier of that cunning alphabet, whereby selecting and combining …

    Herman MelvilleHerman Melville quote #36
  3. I heard them cry - the peacocks. Was it a cry against the twilight Or against the leaves themselves Turning in the wind, Turning as the flames Turned in the fi…

    Wallace StevensWallace Stevens quote #36