Wallace Stevens, "Anecdote of the Jar"

Anecdote of the Jar

BY WALLACE STEVENS

I placed a jar in Tennessee,   

And round it was, upon a hill.   

It made the slovenly wilderness   

Surround that hill. 

The wilderness rose up to it, 

And sprawled around, no longer wild.   

The jar was round upon the ground   

And tall and of a port in air. 

It took dominion everywhere.   

The jar was gray and bare. 

It did not give of bird or bush,   

Like nothing else in Tennessee.