Nantucket

Flowers through the window
lavender and yellow

changed by white curtains--
Smell of cleanliness--

Sunshine of late afternoon--
On the glass tray

a glass pitcher, the tumbler
turned down, by which

a key is lying--And the
immaculate white bed


William Carlos Williams
from Collected Poems 1921-1931 (1934)



A stunning instance of imagism. Williams goes into a huge amount of sensory detail in a very short, concise snippet of description. You see, smell, almost taste the light; the quality of air is apparent, as is the season, the location, though you perhaps have never been there. It is brilliant. This is a room and in it there are.

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