Collected Poems, 1943-2004 Quotes

“Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.”
― Richard Wilbur, Collected Poems, 1943-2004

“Odd that a thing is most itself when likened”
― Richard Wilbur, Collected Poems 1943-2004

“the beautiful changes
In such kind ways,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.”
― Richard Wilbur, Collected Poems, 1943-2004

“Now winter downs the dying of the year,
And night is all a settlement of snow;
From the soft street the rooms of houses show
A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,
Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin
And still allows some stirring down within.”
― Richard Wilbur, Collected Poems, 1943-2004

“Young as she is, the stuff / Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy: / I wish her a lucky passage.”
― Richard Wilbur, Collected Poems, 1943-2004

“Tanka
Black-and-white Holsteins
Crowd downfield at feeding time,
Mingling their blotches.
It is like ice breaking up
In a dark, swollen river.”
― Richard Wilbur, Collected Poems, 1943-2004