The Emperor of Ice Cream
Wallace Stevens * Track #42 On Harmonium
Download "The Emperor of Ice Cream"
Album Harmonium
- #1Earthy Anecdote
Wallace Stevens
- #2Invective Against Swans
Wallace Stevens
- #3In the Carolinas
Wallace Stevens
- #4The Paltry Nude Starts on a String Voyage
Wallace Stevens
- #5The Plot Against the Giant
Wallace Stevens
- #6Infanta Marina
Wallace Stevens
- #7Domination of Black
Wallace Stevens
- #8The Snow Man
Wallace Stevens
- #9The Ordinary Women
Wallace Stevens
- #10The Load of Sugar-Cane
Wallace Stevens
- #11Le Monocle de Mon Oncle
Wallace Stevens
- #12Nuances of a Theme by Williams
Wallace Stevens
- #13Metaphors of a Magnifico
Wallace Stevens
- #14Ploughing on Sunday
Wallace Stevens
- #15Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et Les Unze Mille Vierges
Wallace Stevens
- #16Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores
Wallace Stevens
- #17Fabliau of Florida
Wallace Stevens
- #18The Doctor of Geneva
Wallace Stevens
- #19Another Weeping Woman
Wallace Stevens
- #20Homunculus et La Belle Etoile
Wallace Stevens
- #21The Comedian as the Letter C
Wallace Stevens
- #22From the Misery of Don Joost
Wallace Stevens
- #23O Florida, Venereal Soil
Wallace Stevens
- #24Last Looks at the Lilacs
Wallace Stevens
- #25The Worms at Heaven’s Gate
Wallace Stevens
- #26The Jack-Rabbit
Wallace Stevens
- #27Anecdote of Men by the Thousand
Wallace Stevens
- #28The Silver Plough-Boy
Wallace Stevens
- #29The Apostrophe to Vincentine
Wallace Stevens
- #30Floral Decorations for Bananas
Wallace Stevens
- #31Anecdote of Canna
Wallace Stevens
- #32On the Manner of Addressing Clouds
Wallace Stevens
- #33Of Heaven Considered As a Tomb
Wallace Stevens
- #34Of the Surface of Things
Wallace Stevens
- #35Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks
Wallace Stevens
- #36
A High-Toned Old Christian WomanWallace Stevens
- #37The Place of the Solitaires
Wallace Stevens
- #38The Weeping Burgher
Wallace Stevens
- #39The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysican
Wallace Stevens
- #40Banal Soujourn
Wallace Stevens
- #41Depression Before Spring
Wallace Stevens
- #42The Emperor of Ice Cream
Wallace Stevens
- #43The Cuban Doctor
Wallace Stevens
- #44Tea at the Palaz of Hoon
Wallace Stevens
- #45Disillusionment of Ten O’ Clock
Wallace Stevens
- #46Sunday Morning
Wallace Stevens
- #47The Virgin Carrying a Lantern
Wallace Stevens
- #48Stars at Tallapoosa
Wallace Stevens
- #49Explanation
Wallace Stevens
- #50Six Significant Landscapes
Wallace Stevens
- #51Bantam in Pine-Woods
Wallace Stevens
- #52Anecdote of the Jar
Wallace Stevens
- #53Palace of the Babies
Wallace Stevens
- #54Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs
Wallace Stevens
- #55Jasmine’s Beautiful Thoughts Underneath the Willow
Wallace Stevens
- #56Cortège for Rosenbloom
Wallace Stevens
- #57Tattoo
Wallace Stevens
- #58The Bird with the Coppery, Keen Claws
Wallace Stevens
- #59Life Is Motion
Wallace Stevens
- #60The Wind Shifts
Wallace Stevens
- #61Colloquy with a Polish Aunt
Wallace Stevens
- #62Gubbinal
Wallace Stevens
- #63Two Figures in Dense Violet Light
Wallace Stevens
- #64Theory
Wallace Stevens
- #65To the One of Fictive Music
Wallace Stevens
- #66Hymn from a Watermelon Pavillion
Wallace Stevens
- #67Peter Quince at the Clavier
Wallace Stevens
- #68Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Wallace Stevens
- #69Nomad Exquisite
Wallace Stevens
- #70Tea
Wallace Stevens
The Emperor of Ice Cream by Wallace Stevens
Performed by
Wallace StevensAbout
A poem by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) describing the scene after the death of an ordinary woman. Preparations are being made for a wake in her house, which bustles with activity even as she lies “cold” and “dumb.” The poem appeared in Stevens’s first collection, Harmonium (1923).
In a letter of 193...
The Emperor of Ice Cream Annotated
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once,
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.