Richard Wilbur Poems (34 Poems)
The Writer (Richard Wilbur Poems)
In her room at the prow of the house Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden, My daughter is writing a story. I pause in the stairwell, hearing >From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys Like … Continue reading
The Beautiful Changes (Richard Wilbur Poems)
One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies On water; it glides So from the walker, it turns Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you Valleys my mind … Continue reading
Wedding Toast (Richard Wilbur Poems)
St. John tells how, at Cana’s wedding feast, The water-pots poured wine in such amount That by his sober count There were a hundred gallons at the least. It made no earthly sense, unless to show How whatsoever love elects … Continue reading
A Plain Song For Comadre (Richard Wilbur Poems)
Though the unseen may vanish, though insight fails And doubter and downcast saint Join in the same complaint, What holy things were ever frightened off By a fly’s buzz, or itches, or a cough? Harder than nails They are, more … Continue reading
Love Calls Us To The Things Of This World (Richard Wilbur Poems)
The eyes open to a cry of pulleys, And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple As false dawn. Outside the open window The morning air is all awash with angels. Some are in … Continue reading
Boy at the Window (Richard Wilbur Poems)
Seeing the snowman standing all alone In dusk and cold is more than he can bear. The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare A night of gnashings and enormous moan. His tearful sight can hardly reach to where … Continue reading
A Hole In The Floor (Richard Wilbur Poems)
for Rene Magritte The carpenter’s made a hole In the parlor floor, and I’m standing Staring down into it now At four o’clock in the evening, As Schliemann stood when his shovel Knocked on the crowns of Troy. A clean-cut … Continue reading
For K.R. on her Sixtieth Birthday (Richard Wilbur Poems)
Blow out the candles of your cake. They will not leave you in the dark, Who round with grace this dusky arc Of the grand tour which souls must take. You who have sounded William Blake, And the still pool, … Continue reading
A Fire-Truck (Richard Wilbur Poems)
Right down the shocked street with a siren-blast That sends all else skittering to the curb, Redness, brass, ladders and hats hurl past, Blurring to sheer verb, Shift at the corner into uproarious gear And make it around the turn … Continue reading
Praise In Summer (Richard Wilbur Poems)
Obscurely yet most surely called to praise, As sometimes summer calls us all, I said The hills are heavens full of branching ways Where star-nosed moles fly overhead the dead; I said the trees are mines in air, I said … Continue reading
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