"The Emperor of Ice-Cream" is one of the most well-known poems by American Modernist poet Wallace Stevens. The poem appears in Stevens's widely influential debut collection, Harmonium, which was published in 1923. The meaning of the poem is notoriously ambiguous, but its two equal-length stanzas present clear enough scenarios. An old woman has died, and in the first stanza the speaker issues instructions to others for the funeral or wake. In the second stanza, the speaker appears to be in a quieter room with the woman's cold, dead body. Here, the speaker seems to issue a mysterious plea for reality to be stripped of illusory appearances. Readers have often interpreted the poem as showing the ultimate triumph of life over the silence of death. This isn't necessarily some heroic victory, but rather a wider point about the nature of experience.
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The Full Text of “The Emperor of Ice-Cream”
1Call the roller of big cigars,
2The muscular one, and bid him whip
3In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
4Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
5As they are used to wear, and let the boys
6Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
7Let be be finale of seem.
8The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
9Take from the dresser of deal,
10Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
11On which she embroidered fantails once
12And spread it so as to cover her face.
13If her horny feet protrude, they come
14To show how cold she is, and dumb.
15Let the lamp affix its beam.
16The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
The Full Text of “The Emperor of Ice-Cream”
1Call the roller of big cigars,
2The muscular one, and bid him whip
3In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
4Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
5As they are used to wear, and let the boys
6Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
7Let be be finale of seem.
8The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
9Take from the dresser of deal,
10Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
11On which she embroidered fantails once
12And spread it so as to cover her face.
13If her horny feet protrude, they come
14To show how cold she is, and dumb.
15Let the lamp affix its beam.
16The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
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“The Emperor of Ice-Cream” Summary
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“The Emperor of Ice-Cream” Themes
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Reality vs. Appearances
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Life, Death, and Sensuality
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Emperor of Ice-Cream”
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Lines 1-3
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. -
Lines 4-6
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers. -
Lines 7-8
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. -
Lines 9-12
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. -
Lines 13-14
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb. -
Lines 15-16
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
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“The Emperor of Ice-Cream” Symbols
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Ice Cream
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Clothes and Sheets
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Flowers in Newspaper
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“The Emperor of Ice-Cream” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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Allusion
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Caesura
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Consonance
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End-Stopped Line
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Repetition
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Personification
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“The Emperor of Ice-Cream” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Bid
- Concupiscent
- Curds
- Wenches
- Dawdle
- Finale
- Dresser
- Deal
- Embroidered
- Fantails
- Horny Feet
- Protrude
- Dumb
- Affix
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- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Emperor of Ice-Cream”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“The Emperor of Ice-Cream” Speaker
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“The Emperor of Ice-Cream” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “The Emperor of Ice-Cream”
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More “The Emperor of Ice-Cream” Resources
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External Resources
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More Stevens Poems and Information — A bountiful resource from the Poetry Foundation, including podcasts, essays, and more poems all relating to Stevens.
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Bloom on Stevens — Audio of a fascinating lecture on Stevens by Harold Bloom, one of the most influential literary critics of the 20th century.
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A Reading — The poem read by YouTube Tom O'Bedlam.
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The Thrilling Mind of Wallace Stevens — An interesting article about Stevens's life and work.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Wallace Stevens
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