在《橡树下的单人纸牌游戏》中，我们遇到一个没有面目的说话者， 他的声音已经成熟到了结晶的状态，以至于他就是他的声音----清晰，透彻，深刻的智慧的音响。相比华滋华斯在《孤独的割麦女》中的“我”的声音而言，他的声音是进一步弱化的， 展示出浪漫派的孤独者的一种相对安静的最终形象。而诗中的“人”（one）实际上在原文里的含义要比中文里的“人”更加虚化。有的评论家甚至认为，史蒂文斯的诗要比爱略特的诗更加“非个人化”，尽管两人的诗歌观念截然不同。
在写作于1934年的《齐维斯特的秩序的观念》（The Idea of Order at Key West）一诗中，史蒂文斯展现给我们的说话者则是一个极其雄辩的修辞大师，他的第一句就是高音：
她歌唱于大海的精灵之上。
She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.
The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.
For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.
If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.
这种精神并非自然的产物，它不是上升中被波浪染色的“大海的语声”，也不是代表着虚无的空气的演说， 也不是循环在一个季节里的单纯的声音。“它不止于此”（it was more than that） ， 这种表达形式多次出现在史蒂文斯的诗里，他总是这样去寻求更丰富的可能性。 结果，这种精神不但不是自然的产物，甚至不是女歌唱者的产物，尽管她是她的歌和这个她在其中歌唱的短暂的世界的创造者：
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.
Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.
Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker”s rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.
我们在前面的论辩中能够感受到的一种莫名的焦虑和压抑，在这里纵横而出：大海在新的秩序中重新获得了语言，天空中芬芳的入口的预言正在诉说着未来的世界， 而这一切都跟我们人类自身和我们的起源有最深的联系，或者说这正是建造我们世界的语言。一切界限在一个扩张中的幻象中变得越来越鬼神莫测，与此形成强烈对比的是， 这种语言的声音变得更加锐利。
比如，在《橡树下的单人纸牌游戏》（Solitaire under the Oaks, 1955）一诗中，已经76岁的史蒂文斯就跟“孤独”做了游戏：
In the oblivion of cards
One exists among pure principles.
Neither the cards nor the trees nor the air
Persist as facts. This is an escape
To principium, to meditation.
One knows at last what to think about
And think about it, without consciousness,
Under the oak trees, completely released.