Explore "The Ordinary Women" by Wallace Stevens on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Then from their poverty they rose, / From dry catarrhs, and to guitars / They flitted / Through the palace walls.
They flung monotony behind, / Turned from their want, and, nonchalant, / They crowded / The nocturnal halls.
The lacquered loges huddled there / Mumbled zay-zay and a-zay, a-zay. / The moonlight / Fubbed the girandoles.
And the cold dresses that they wore, / In the vapid haze of the window-bays, / Were tranquil / As they leaned and looked
From the window-sills at the alphabets, / At beta b and gamma g, / To study / The canting curlicues
Of heaven and of the heavenly script. / And there they read of marriage-bed. / Ti-lill-o! / And they read right long.
The gaunt guitarists on the strings / Rumbled a-day and a-day, a-day. / The moonlight / Rose on the beachy floors.
How explicit the coiffures became, / The diamond point, the sapphire point, / The sequins / Of the civil fans!
Insinuations of desire, / Puissant speech, alike in each, / Cried quittance / To the wickless halls.
Then from their poverty they rose, / From dry guitars, and to catarrhs / They flitted / Through the palace walls.