"The Public Square" is a poem from the second edition[1] (1931) of Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium.
It was first published in 1923,[2] so it is one of the few poems in the collection that is not free of copyright, but it is quoted here in full as justified by fair use for scholarly commentary.
A slash of angular blacks Like a fractured edifice That was buttressed by blue slats In a coma of the moon.
Fell slowly as when at night A languid janitor bears His lantern through colonnades And the architecture swoons.
The harshness of the poem can be compared to the brutal encounter with Berserk in "Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks", with which it shares an architectural motif.