A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts
A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts - meaning Summary
Published in 1947 Collection
Stevens depicts a late-day shift in perception where thought eases and ordinary objects become transformed by imaginative light. The intrusive cat recedes as a gentle "rabbit-light" enfolds the speaker, producing a restful, expansive self that fills the evening and the surrounding grass and trees. The poem emphasizes a peaceful, almost visionary state in which personal boundaries dissolve, ordinary details shrink, and being itself becomes sufficient without explanation or deliberate thought.
Read Complete AnalysesThe difficulty to think at the end of day, When the shapeless shadow covers the sun And nothing is left except light on your fur; There was the cat slopping its milk all day, Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, white milk And August the most peaceful month. To be, in the grass, in the peacefullest time, Without that monument of cat, The cat forgotten on the moon; And to feel that the light is a rabbit-light In which everything is meant for you And nothing need be explained; Then there is nothing to think of. It comes of itself; And east rushes west and west rushes down, No matter. The grass is full And full of yourself. The trees around are for you, The whole of the wideness of night is for you, A self that touches all edges, You become a self that fills the four corners of night. The red cat hides away in the fur-light And there you are humped high, humped up, You are humped higher and higher, black as stone; You sit with your head like a carving in space And the little green cat is a bug in the grass.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.