Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I

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

II

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

III

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

IV

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

V

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

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.

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?

VIII

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

IX

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

X

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

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.

XII

  The river is moving.
  The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

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