Jasmine's Beautiful Thoughts Underneath The Willow

"Jasmine's Beautiful Thoughts Underneath The Willow" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium.

Is like a vivid apprehension Of bliss beyond the mutes of plaster, Or paper souvenirs of rapture,

Of bliss submerged beneath appearance, In an interior ocean's rocking Of long, capricious fugues and chorals.

It may be compared to "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle", which can be understood to be about the travails of Stevens's marriage.

If "Monocle" reflects on the difficulty of "transporting" love into middle age, "Jasmine's Beautiful Thoughts" muses on the eccentricity of his youthful love and may even suggest that it survives in some form, because of a strength like "an interior ocean's rocking", submerged beneath appearance.