Sunday, May 28, 2006
Poem of the Week
Posted by Wayne Christeson on Sun, May 28, 2006 at 7:02 PM
Together with Robert Frost, Richard Wilbur is the great American formalist poet of the 20th century. He began his writing career while he was a soldier fighting in France during World War II and now, in his eighties, he is still working. His writing is marked by a consistency of tone, lovely and surprising rhyme, and by sure and graceful rhythm.
Piazza Di Spagna, Early Morning
I can't forget
How she stood at the top of that long marble stair
Amazed, and then with a sleepy pirouette
Went dancing slowly down to the fountain-quieted square;
Nothing upon her face
But some impersonal loneliness,-- not then a girl,
But as it were a reverie of the place,
A called-for falling glide and whirl;
As when a leaf, petal, or thin chip
Is drawn to the falls of a pool and, circling a moment above it,
Rides on over the lip--
Perfectly beautiful, perfectly ignorant of it.
Piazza Di Spagna, Early Morning
I can't forget
How she stood at the top of that long marble stair
Amazed, and then with a sleepy pirouette
Went dancing slowly down to the fountain-quieted square;
Nothing upon her face
But some impersonal loneliness,-- not then a girl,
But as it were a reverie of the place,
A called-for falling glide and whirl;
As when a leaf, petal, or thin chip
Is drawn to the falls of a pool and, circling a moment above it,
Rides on over the lip--
Perfectly beautiful, perfectly ignorant of it.
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