Waving Adieu, Adieu, Adieu

Another week, another chance to fall completely under the spell of a different poet. There were so many wonderful poems this week, but I particularly enjoyed Wallace Stevens, and specifically his “Waving Adieu, Adieu, Adieu.” Reading the words themselves cause me to choke up each time, for obvious reasons of memories of farewells. But besides that, the flow and sounds of the words are almost mesmerizing, with the similar sounds and word repetitions. This is the first poem I’ve noticed in the course that truly incorporates internal rhyme and rhythm without end rhymes, so it particularly caught my ear. So here I will focus on the poetic elements of language and sound/rhythm to discuss the poem.

It is interesting to note that Stevens does not use a rhyme scheme at the ends of the lines, but he uses internal rhymes throughout, to give it a feel of musical flow without sing-songy rhymes. With just the first two lines of the poem you see the pattern emerge: “That would be waving and that would be crying / Crying and shouting and meaning farewell.” This internal rhyme and repetition indicates the sureness or finality of the scenario, that there is a certainty here. In fact, in the entire poem of 20 lines, the word farewell is stated 7 times. This word choice and repetition cannot help but reveal the meaning of the poem, and that is, for me, saying final goodbyes.

The internal rhymes continue, in line 6 for example, in speaking of these farewells in a “world without heaven to follow” as “stops,” that they “Would be endings, more poignant that partings, profounder.”

The third stanza uses consonance (if I am using the term correctly), to a large degree, and mirrors the “l” sound of the word “farewell” in several words: singular, self, yielded, little (repeated 3 times), and jubilant. This same sound continues in the fourth stanza with sleep, lie, still, beheld, and of course farewell, twice.

All in all this is a gorgeous poem. It is most definitely musical, in a beautiful and melancholy way. For some peculiar reason, I particularly love when a poem has a stirring title such as this, but the poet chooses not to restate the title directly anwhere in the poem. The title itself plays an important role in the overall meaning and mood of this one, but Stevens doesn’t deem it necessary to restate it verbatim anywhere. In fact, the word "adieu" doesn't appear anywhere in the poem. However, this title is crucial, and in fact sets up the repetition that will occur in the poem, which helps signify a finality, a closure, a certainty. Adieu, adieu, adieu. Farewell.