Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird VIII
I know noble accentsAnd lucid, inescapable rhythms;But I know, too,That the blackbird is involvedIn what I know.
About this text
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird VIII is in the public domain. This text is taken from Harmonium, Project Gutenberg ebook #78743; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird VIII, in Harmonium (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #78743, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stevens-harmonium/thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-a-blackbird-viii.html, id L01081.
Form and metre
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird VIII is 5 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 6.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I know noble accents | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| And lucid, inescapable rhythms; | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘˘/˘ |
| But I know, too, | 4 | ···· |
| That the blackbird is involved | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| In what I know. | 4 | ···· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.