James Merrill, Collected Poems

Collected Poems by James Merrill


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
"Always the black swan moves on the lake; always
The blond child stands to gaze
As the tall emblem pivots and rides out
To the opposite side, always. The child upon
The bank, hands full of difficult marvels, stays
Forever to cry aloud
In anguish: I love the black swan."

with Merrill, I initially preferred his early book, "the Black Swan", probably a symptom of my own less sophisticated tastes. His later work is urbane and witty, and has surpr...