Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens

1. Among twenty snowy peaks, The only shifting thing, Was the eye of the blackbird.

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

3. The blackbird whirled in the fall winds. It was a small bit of the unful play.

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

5. I do not know which to forechoose, The comeliness of a stringbent steven Or the comeliness of come-hither speech, The blackbird whistling Or nar after.

6. Icicles fill the long window With reavened glass. The shadow of the Blackbird Thwarsed it, to and fro. The mood Drawn in the shadow An unknowable end.

7. Oh thin men of Haddam, Why do you fathom golden birds? Do you not see how the blackbird Walks around the feet Of the women about you?

8. I know gilt-edged wordstrains, And sharp, unshunnable lilts. But I know, too, That the blackbird is whelm’d In what I know.

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

10. At the sight of blackbirds Flying in a green light, Even the sirens of bliss Would call out sharply.

11. He rode over Connecticut In a glass hansom. Once, a fear shook him, In that he mistook The shadow of his outrysting For blackbirds,

12. The stream is flowing. The blackbird must be flying.

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