"The Worms at Heaven's Gate" is a poem from Wallace Stevens' first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923).
Robert Buttel sees the poem as a specimen of Stevens' "grotesque strain" and wryly observes that "it would be difficult to find a more unique funeral procession in literature".
The poem may be compared to "Anecdote of Canna", which describes a unique terrace stroll, and to "Of Heaven Considered as a Tomb", which speculates on the other side of death.
Buttel continues:[3] [T]he reversed initial foot and the following caesura help draw specific attention to the eye; the following three iambic feet maintain the pace of the procession; and the spondees on `that eye' and `white lid' substantiate the reflective consideration of Badroulbadour's exquisite beauty.
In the next-to-last line of the poem, Stevens did not hesitate to give full stress to the three main words and let very light accents fall on the preposition and conjunction: The bundle of the body and the feet.
It was important to hasten over the merely physical attributes of the princess, and the metrical telescoping of the line fits that intention without disturbing the processional rhythm.
The poem surely adds a wry layer of meaning to Stevens' epigram in Adagia, "The poet makes silk dresses out of worms.