13 ways

 

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A BLACKBIRD  BY WALLACE STEVENS

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

Amw

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

y snowy mountains,
The o
                                            

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.                                                             
It was a small part of the pantomime.                                                         A man and a woman
                                                                                                                 Are one.
                                                                                                                 A man and a woman and a blackbird Are one.

                                                                                                                  Are one.

 

 

 

 

        

             

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

 


Was the eye of the blackbird.                                          

                                                    

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.

                                                                                      

                                                                                                  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?
                                                                                                Do you not see how the blackbird
                                                                                                Walks around the feet
                                                                                                   Of the women about you?

                                             

                             

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

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

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

  

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

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,  

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


Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

 

                                                                                                                                                          The river is moving.
                                                                                                                                                          The blackbird must be flying.

 

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

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