Wallace Stevens - The Ordinary Women lyrics

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