Beards, Bards, and Sunset: Reading Wallace Stevens at Dusk (Tea at the Palaz of Hoon)
I am writing a longish poem on beards and bearded bards and I came across a beautiful poem by Wallace Stevens—“Tea at the Palaz of Hoon.” This is one of his earlier poems from his first book Harmonium. According to Paul Mariani (whose The Whole Harmonium I cherish), this is a poem that foretells the "radiant sun god Ra" that Wallace's poems would shine later.
Tea at the Palaz of Hoon
- Wallace Stevens
Not less because in purple I descended
The western day through what you called
The loneliest air, not less was I myself.
What was the ointment sprinkled on my beard?
What were the hymns that buzzed beside my ears?
What was the sea whose tide swept through me there?
Out of my mind the golden ointment rained,
And my ears made the blowing hymns they heard.
I was myself the compass of that sea:
I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw
Or heard or felt came not but from myself;
And there I found myself more truly and more strange.
It’s only three tercets, but it opens like a window at dusk. The speaker descends “the western day”—already an autumnal, sunset direction—and asks what anointed him, what sang to him, and what sea moved through him. Then he answers: the “golden ointment” rained from his own mind, his ears made the hymns they heard, and he himself was the compass of that sea. The poem closes with a line I have seen before, not knowing where it was from: “I was the world in which I walked… / And there I found myself more truly and more strange.”
I think the speaker can be the sun or sunset: “descended / the western day” suggests sundown; “golden ointment” is the evening light poured over the world; “hymns” are twilight’s insect choir; the “sea” is both literal ocean and the tide of failing light. If the sun speaks, it anoints its own “beard” (the glowing fringe of clouds, or—closer to home—my own beard catching the last light). But Wallace immediately turns that outer spectacle inside: “Out of my mind the golden ointment rained.” The poem wants us to notice how perception co-creates the scene. So the richest reading is both: sunset as the world’s ceremony and the perceiving mind as its inner priest. This is interesting, because it is fall here in San Ramon, and sun is going down as I type this out.
Anyhow, this matters for the “bearded bard” I’m chasing. A beard can be a badge of ego, but Wallace oils it with humility. The anointing doesn’t descend from an external authority; it arrives as an inner climate at evening. Autumn works this way: the showy green of noon recedes and hidden colors step forward. Likewise, the poem stages the sunset of the poet’s ego: not self-erasure, but a loosening that lets the world and the walker coincide. “I was the world in which I walked” isn’t grandiosity; it’s non-duality in plain clothes. Reality happens where attention happens. When attention is generous, the boundary between singer and song softens; the ears “make” hymns by honest hearing; the sea’s pull is answered by an inner compass—attunement, not control.
That’s why the last line volunteers its paradox: in letting go, the self becomes “more truly and more strange.” Truth arrives as wonder, not as a fixed mask. And sunset is the right emblem: the light steps down, edges blur, and yet everything glows more intimately. For my own poem, this is the invitation: let the beard be less a credential and more a wick; let the evening oil it; let listening be the ceremony; and walk as the world, not apart from it.
I think the speaker can be the sun or sunset: “descended / the western day” suggests sundown; “golden ointment” is the evening light poured over the world; “hymns” are twilight’s insect choir; the “sea” is both literal ocean and the tide of failing light. If the sun speaks, it anoints its own “beard” (the glowing fringe of clouds, or—closer to home—my own beard catching the last light). But Wallace immediately turns that outer spectacle inside: “Out of my mind the golden ointment rained.” The poem wants us to notice how perception co-creates the scene. So the richest reading is both: sunset as the world’s ceremony and the perceiving mind as its inner priest. This is interesting, because it is fall here in San Ramon, and sun is going down as I type this out.
Anyhow, this matters for the “bearded bard” I’m chasing. A beard can be a badge of ego, but Wallace oils it with humility. The anointing doesn’t descend from an external authority; it arrives as an inner climate at evening. Autumn works this way: the showy green of noon recedes and hidden colors step forward. Likewise, the poem stages the sunset of the poet’s ego: not self-erasure, but a loosening that lets the world and the walker coincide. “I was the world in which I walked” isn’t grandiosity; it’s non-duality in plain clothes. Reality happens where attention happens. When attention is generous, the boundary between singer and song softens; the ears “make” hymns by honest hearing; the sea’s pull is answered by an inner compass—attunement, not control.
That’s why the last line volunteers its paradox: in letting go, the self becomes “more truly and more strange.” Truth arrives as wonder, not as a fixed mask. And sunset is the right emblem: the light steps down, edges blur, and yet everything glows more intimately. For my own poem, this is the invitation: let the beard be less a credential and more a wick; let the evening oil it; let listening be the ceremony; and walk as the world, not apart from it.
Now I've forgotten what I was writing about. Thanks Wallace. Maybe I should stick to reading short poems instead of writing long ones.
Singing oneness!
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