a high-toned old christian woman, by wallace stevens

poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
take the moral law and make a nave of it
and from the nave build haunted heaven.  thus,
the conscience is converted into palms,
like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
we agree in principle.  that's clear.  but take
the opposing law and make a peristyle,
and from the peristyle project a masque
beyond the planets.  thus, our bawdiness,
unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,
is equally converted into palms,
squiggling like saxophones.  and palm for palm,
madame, we are where we began.  allow,
therefore, that in the planetary scene
your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,
smackingtheir muzzy bellies in parade,
proud of such novelties of the sublime,
such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,
may, merely may, madame, whip from themselves
a jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.
this will make widows wince.  but fictive things
wink as they will. wink most when widows wince.

(from Stevens, Collected Poetry & Prose, p. 47)

*      *      *      *       *

Let's start with Ronald Sukenick on this one, because he's very succinct: "Through the imagination one can just as well conceive a universal vision based on pleasures as one based on morality." (p.218, WSMTO) 

James Baird, in the Dome and the Rock writes: "He opposes a Christian design with a Greek design.  'Take the moral law and make a nave of it / and from the nave build haunted heaven.'  'but take / the opposing law and make a peristyle, / and from the peristyle project a masque / beyond the planets. '  This antimoral masque projected from the peristyle makes all the difference.  The architecture f the poet is inadmissible as a nave; it is rejected as a moral structure.  It must be of the self and its exclusive vision of the world.  An abstraction of man is inappropriate to the poet." (p.37)

So, Stevens is comparing the christian 'nave' to the pagan, and most importantly 'poetic,' peristyle.  He just keeps on comparing throughout the poem: bawdiness and epitaph, citherns and saxophones, 'haunted heaven' and 'a masque beyond the planets.'  But POETRY is the supreme fiction.   'This will make widows wince. But fictive things / wink as they will.  Wink most when widows wince.'  That's a very pleasing and amusing pair of lines.

A few words about vocabulary:
high-toned = someone who always speaks up for whatever is 'politically correct,' in those days that would mean 'morally correct,' ie the current church principles
citherns = zithers, for example, psalteries and other such simple stringed instruments used in low church worship
nave = the part of the church structure that is cross-like
peristyle = a colonnade surrounding a building or enclosing a court
masque = a play in which the actors wear masks or elaborate costumes

J.S. Leonard writes about 'palms': "The palm, appropriating religious associations and tropical exoticism, is an odd vehicle for unmediated experience - unadorned Being/Reality.  Ronald Sukenick, speaks of 'an acute awareness of existence itself.  In (our poem) the palm symbolizes both the Celestial and its replacement, 'the supreme fiction;' in 'Description Without Place' the palm stands at the perceptual horizon (as in 'Of Mere Being') and seems to image the symbolizing process itself.  The 'palm at the end of the mind' is a matter of getting 'beyond the last thought' to a signification ('of the spirit') commensurate with 'the idea of God,' within the province of the supreme fiction.  The palm that 'rises / in the bronze decor' (not a natural setting) is, like the palm of 'Description without Place,' 'a little different from reality: / the difference that we make in what we see.'" (pp.77-78, The Fluent Mundo)

From my own perspective, once again: 'I've looked at clouds from both sides now.'  I remember the old fashioned forms of christianity, which were soberly and solemnly moral, and I've also had the experience of ecstatic religion that involves dancing, and which evolved in our own country into jazz and rock-n-roll.  I can see that both have their sublime moments where we feel as if our souls touch into something greater and essence-like that is very thrilling and transforming. 

I hear a hint of his 'disaffection' with the religious scene of the 'high-toned old christian woman' in the lines about the 'parade' with its drums that sound 'tink and tunk and tunk-a-tunk-tunk' (we still had parades like that in Pennsylvania when I was growing up), in which he satirizes 'disaffected flagellants' for being 'well-stuffed, / smacking their muzzy bellies in parade.'  The spiritual communities of Pennsylvania made little of sexuality, vanity, pride and so forth, but made much of the pleasures of the table.  The Pennsylvania Dutch were known far and wide for their hearty and tasty cuisine.  "Cookin' lasts, kissin' don't."

Thomas Lombardi suggests that the 'old christian woman' was Stevens' own mother.  If so, it shows to me how 'disaffected' a poet can be if a theme or trope suits his poetic purpose.  Also note that Holly Stevens in "Souvenirs and Prophecies" quotes a letter from Stevens to his future wife in which he writes: "I have no doubt that Dutch satyrs play the saxophone." (p.198)

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