Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
by Wallace Stevens

~I~

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

~II~

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

~III~

The blackbird whirled
in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

~IV~

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

~V~

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

~VI~

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

~VII~

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

~VIII~

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

~IX~

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

~X~

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

~XI~

He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

~XII~

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

~XIII~

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens blackbird