A poem by Wallace Stevens:



Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird



                     1

           Among twenty snowy mountains,

           The only moving 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 autumn winds.

           It was a small part of the pantomime.



                     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 prefer,

           The beauty of inflections

           Or the beauty of innuendoes,

           The blackbird whistling

           Or just after.



                     6

           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.



                     7

           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?



                     8

           I know noble accents

           And lucid, inescapable rhythms;

           But I know, too,

           That the blackbird is involved

           In what I know.



                     9

           When the blackbird flew out of sight,

           It marked the edge

           Of one of many circles.



                     10

           At the sight of blackbirds

           Flying in a green light,

           Even the bawds of euphony

           Would cry out sharply.



                     11

           He rode over Connecticut

           In a glass coach.

           Once, a fear pierced him,

           In that he mistook

           The shadow of his equipage

           For blackbirds.



                     12

           The river is moving.

           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.