by Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)
Tattoo
Language: English
The light is like a spider. It crawls over the water. It crawls over the edges of the snow. It crawls under your eyelids And spreads its webs there-- Its two webs. The webs of your eyes Are fastened To the flesh and bones of you As to rafters or grass. There are filaments of your eyes On the surface of the water And in the edges of the snow.
Text Authorship:
- by Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955), "Tattoo", appears in Harmonium, first published 1916 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Justin Riveagh Connolly (b. 1933), "Tattoo", op. 9 no. 1, published 1967 [ soprano, flute (piccolo), clarinet (bass clarinet), trumpet, viola, vibraphone, celesta, and harp ], from Poems of Wallace Stevens I, no. 1, Borough Green, Kent, England : Novello [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2026-07-08
Line count: 13
Word count: 70