"Stopping Place"
In highly-varnished noisy heat
As through a lens that does not fit—
The faces jolt in cubes and I
Perceive their odd solidity
And lack of meaning absolute:
For why should noses thus protrude
And to what purpose can relate
Each hair so queerly separate?
Anchored upon the puff of breeze
As shallow as the crude blue seas,
The coloured blocks and cubes of faces
[ . . . ]
Edith Sitwell's poem "Stopping Place" was published in the 1918 "cycle" of Wheels. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below: