“I heard them cry — the peacocks.
Was it a cry against the twilight
Or against the leaves themselves”

—  Wallace Stevens , book Harmonium

"Domination of Black"
Harmonium (1923)
Context: 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?

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Wallace Stevens 278
American poet 1879–1955

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