silently awaits his death with his ‘‘wide and anti-
que eyes’’ observing this world that has cost him
his heart’s blood. His antiquity mocks a modern
world that is already in decline.
‘‘Year’s-End,’’ another poem on the threat
of death, even more clearly contrasts the death of
natural things, in their readiness to accept it, and
the incompleteness and discord that death brings
in the human realm[....] This poem demonstrates
Wilbur’s skill in describing objects but also
reveals his sometimes functional, sometimes
not, desire to pun....
‘‘Lament’’ is a poem about death, about
expressing regret that the particulars of the
world, what is ‘‘visible and firm,’’ must vanish.
This time a pun is functional:[....] ‘‘Still, Citizen
Sparrow’’ is one of Wilbur’s best known poems
and, along with ‘‘Beowulf,’’ introduces a new
and important theme: whether heroism is possi-
ble in a world of disorder. In ‘‘Beowulf’’ the
stress is on the loneliness and isolation of the
hero. In ‘‘Still, Citizen Sparrow,’’ in contrast to
the common citizens (the sparrows), the hero
appears as ‘‘vulture,’’ a creature the sparrows
must learn to appreciate. The poem is tonally
complex, beginning as an argument between
Citizen Sparrow and the poet over a political
leader as a vulture and ending with an argument
for seeing the faults of leaders in a broader per-
spective because they perform essential services,
accept the risks of action, and are capable of
dominating existence. The ‘‘vulture’’ is regarded
as heroic because he is capable of heroic action:
he feeds on death, ‘‘mocks mutability,’’ and
‘‘keeps nature new.’’ Wilbur concludes: ‘‘all
men are Noah’s sons’’ in that they potentially
have the abilities of the hero if they will take the
risks.
Another poem, ‘‘Driftwood,’’ illustrates
what some of Wilbur’s early reviewers saw as a
possible influence of Marianne Moore: finding a
symbol or emblem in something so unexpected
that the choice seems whimsical. In this poem the
driftwood becomes an emblem for survival with
an identity[....] It is isolated but has retained its
‘‘ingenerate grain.’’
In Wilbur’s second volume, as in his first,
the need for a balance between the real and the
ideal that avoids illusions and escapism is a sig-
nificant theme. In ‘‘Grasse: The Olive Trees’’ the
town in its abundance exceeds the normal and
symbolizes reaching beyond the usual limits of
reality, the overabundance of the South, that can
become enervating and illusionary: [....]
Only the ‘‘unearthly pale’’ of the olive repre-
sents the other pole of the reality principle and
‘‘Teaches the South it is not paradise.’’
‘‘La Rose des Vents’’ is the first dialogue
poem for Wilbur, a dialogue between a lady
and the poet in a format reminiscent of Wallace
Stevens’s ‘‘Sunday Morning.’’ The lady argues
for the sufficiency of accepting the reality of
objects, while the poet desires symbols removed
from reality. In Wilbur’s version the lady has the
last word: [....]
‘‘’A World without Objects Is a Sensible
Emptiness’’’ is a poem with perhaps the quintes-
sential Wilbur title. Visions, illusions, and oases
are the objects of quests for people in a waste-
land world, but the questing spirit, ‘‘The tall
camels of the spirit,’’ must also have the neces-
sary endurance to turn back to the things of this
world as a resource: [....]
Extravagant claims are made for visions
that are firmly based on life. A supernova can
be seen ‘‘burgeoning over the barn,’’[....]
InCeremonyWilbur exhibits greater versa-
tility than is evident in his first book. He can now
express his major themes in lighter poems, even
in epigrams. The importance of a delicate bal-
ance between idealism and empiricism, specula-
tion and skepticism, is concisely and wittily
expressed in the two couplets of ‘‘Epistemology.’’
Samuel Johnson is told to ‘‘Kick at the rock’’ in
his rejection of Berkeleyan idealism, but the rock
is also a reminder of the molecular mysteries
within it:[....] Man’s occasional denials of the
physical world he so desperately needs are
mocked in the second couplet: [....]
With the appearance of his second book of
poems, Wilbur was appointed an assistant pro-
fessor of English at Harvard, where he remained
until 1954, living in Lincoln, Massachusetts,
with his wife and four children—Ellen Dickin-
son, Christopher Hayes, Nathan Lord, and
Aaron Hammond. He spent the academic year
of 1952-1953 in New Mexico on a Guggenheim
Fellowship to write a poetic drama. When his
attempts at a play did not work out to his sat-
isfaction, he turned to translating Moliere’s` Le
Misanthropeinstead, beginning his distinguished
career as translator. A grant of $3,000, the Prix
de Rome, permitted Wilbur to live at the Amer-
ican Academy in Rome in 1954. After his returnLove Calls Us to the Things of This World