Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
[two]
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds
[three]
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
[four]
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
[five]
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
[six]
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.
[seven]
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?
[eight]
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
[nine]
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
[ten]
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
[eleven]
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
[twelve]
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
[thirteen]
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.
Wallace Stevens
