Nuances of a Theme by Williams
# Nuances of a Theme by Williams

"Nuances of a Theme by Williams" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium.

   It's a strange courage  You give me, ancient star:
    Shine alone in the sunrise  toward which you lend no part!
   Shine alone, shine nakedly, shine like bronze  that reflects neither my face nor any inner part  of my being, shine like fire, that mirrors nothing.
   Lend no part to any humanity that suffuses  you in its own light.  Be not chimera of morning,  Half-man, half-star.  Be not an intelligence,  Like a widow's bird  Or an old horse.

The italicized first lines make up a poem, "El Hombre", by Stevens' modernist contemporary William Carlos Williams. The poem was first published in Little Review 5 (1918).

