Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
by Wallace Stevens

black feather

I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
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XIII

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