Domination Of Black

Wallace Stevens 1879 (Reading) – 1955 (Hartford)



At night, by the fire,
The colors of the bushes
And of the fallen leaves,
Repeating themselves,
Turned in the room,
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.
Yes: but the color of the heavy hemlocks
Came striding.
And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.

The colors of their tails
Were like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind,
In the twilight wind.
They swept over the room,
Just as they flew from the boughs of the hemlocks
Down to the ground.
I heard them cry -- the peacocks.
Was it a cry against the twilight
Or against the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind,
Turning as the flames
Turned in the fire,
Turning as the tails of the peacocks
Turned in the loud fire,
Loud as the hemlocks
Full of the cry of the peacocks?
Or was it a cry against the hemlocks?

Out of the window,
I saw how the planets gathered
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.
I saw how the night came,
Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocks
I felt afraid.
And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 26, 2023

57 sec read
150

Quick analysis:

Scheme abxcdCEbxF xcEedbxfxcExafabfb xxCExbxF
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 981
Words 192
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 10, 18, 8

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. more…

All Wallace Stevens poems | Wallace Stevens Books

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