The Planet on the Table

"The Planet on the Table" is the fourth poem and song in Ned Rorem's Last Poems of Wallace Stevens. "The Planet on the Table" is for soprano, cello, and piano.

Date: 1972Composer: Ned RoremText: Wallace StevensSong Collection: Last Poems of Wallace Stevens

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Text

The Planet on the Table
by Wallace Stevens

Ariel was glad he had written his poems.
They were of a remembered time
Or of something seen that he liked.

Other makings of the sun
Were waste and welter
And the ripe shrub writhed.

His self and the sun were one
And his poems, although makings of his self,
Were no less makings of the sun.

It was not important that they survive.
What mattered was that they should bear
Some lineament or character,

Some affluence, if only half-perceived,
In the poverty of their words,
Of the planet of which they were part.

–The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play

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Last Poems of Wallace Stevens

Composer(s): Ned Rorem

Song(s): 1. Not Ideas about the Thing but the Thing Itself
2. The River of Rivers in Connecticut
3. A Child Asleep in Its Own Life
4. The Planet on the Table
5. The Dove in Spring
6. Of Mere Being
7. A Clear Day and No Memories

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