"The Revolutionists stop for Orangeade" is a poem from the second, 1931,
edition of Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...

's first book of poetry,
Harmonium

Harmonium (poetry collection)

Harmonium is a book of poetry by U.S. poet Wallace Stevens. His first book, it was published in 1923 by Knopf in an edition of 1500 copies. He was in middle age at that time, forty-four years old. The collection comprises 85 poems, ranging in length from just a few lines to several hundred...

. It was first
published in 1931, so it is restricted by copyright until 2025 in
America and similar jurisdictions, because of legislation like the
Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

Although the poem's title is not atypical in being gaudy, it may be an
exception to the rule that the titles of Stevens's poems are not
guides to their content. The revolutionists are imploring
their leader to let them stop singing in the sun, or at least to
resume singing in the shade. And while the captain starts the singing
in a voice rougher than a grinding shale, orangeade all around would
not be amiss.

The poem reflects Stevens's affection for the Caribbean, and it is as
light as a feather compared to other poems added to the 1931 edition
of Harmonium, like "Sea Surface full of Clouds

Sea Surface full of Clouds

"Sea Surface full of Clouds" is a poem from the second, 1931,edition of Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry,Harmonium. It was firstpublished in 1924, so it is restricted by copyright...

".

Direct address and imperative mood ("Ask us not....", "Sing a
song....", "Wear the breeches...", "Hang a feather....") keeps the
pace brisk in the poem's four stanzas, enhanced in the fourth by the
unusual rhyming.