The Second Four Books of Poems

by Merwin, W. S.

• ISBN13: 9781556590542
• ISBN10: 1556590547
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-01-01
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Pr

Summary

W.S. Merwin was born in New York City in 1927 and grew up in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He worked as a tutor in France, Portugal, and Majorca, and has translated from French, Spanish, Latin and Portugese. He has published more than a dozen volumes of orignal poetry and several volumes of prose. Mr. Merwin has been awarded the Tanning Prize, the Pulitzer and Bollingen prizes, the Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Pen Translation Prize, and many other honors. He lives in Haiku, Hawaii. W.S. Merwin's Second Four Books of Poems includes some of the most startlingly original and influential poetry of the second half of this century, a poetry that has moved, as Richard Howard has written, "from preterition to presence to prophecy." Other books by M.S. Merwin available from Consortium: East Window (Copper Canyon Press), 1-55659-091-1 The First Four Books of Poems (Copper Canyon Press), 1-55659-139-X Flower & Hand (Copper Canyon Press), 1-55659-119-5

Author Biography

W. S. Merwin has been awarded most of the principal prizes in American poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Bollingen Prize, and the Tanning Prize for mastery in the art of poetry. He lives and works on Maui, where he maintains a garden of rare palm trees.

Table of Contents

Preface
Home for Thanksgiving	p. 9
A Letter from Gussie	p. 10
Lemuel's Blessing	p. 12
By Day and by Night	p. 14
In the Gorge	p. 15
Separation	p. 15
The Defeated	p. 15
Noah's Raven	p. 16
As by Water	p. 16
Things	p. 17
Savonarola	p. 17
Inscription for a Burned Bridge	p. 17
Economy	p. 18
Lost Month	p. 18
Dead Hand	p. 18
Acclimatization	p. 19
The Saint of the Uplands	p. 20
The Nails	p. 21
Sire	p. 22
Finally	p. 24
The Ships Are Made Ready in Silence	p. 24
Route With No Number	p. 25
To My Brother Hanson	p. 28
In the Night Fields	p. 29
Now and Again	p. 30
Another Year Come	p. 32
October	p. 32
Departure's Girl-Friend	p. 33
One Way	p. 34
Recognition	p. 36
Invocation	p. 37
The Poem	p. 37
Second Sight	p. 37
Witnesses	p. 39
The Indigestion of the Vampire	p. 39
The Singer	p. 40
The Continuo	p. 41
Vocations	p. 42
Air	p. 43
The Present	p. 44
Standards	p. 44
From a Series	p. 45
Bread and Butter	p. 46
We Continue	p. 47
Marica Lart	p. 48
Reunion	p. 48
Walk-Up	p. 49
To Where We Are	p. 50
The Crossroads of the World Etc.	p. 51
Resolution	p. 55
Before That	p. 56
For the Grave of Posterity	p. 57
This Day of This Month of This Year of This	p. 58
The Way to the River	p. 61
She Who Was Gone	p. 63
My Friends	p. 64
The Man Who Writes Ants	p. 65
The Next	p. 66
The Students of Justice	p. 68
An Island in the Harbor	p. 69
Mountain Town	p. 70
For Now	p. 71
Spring	p. 77
Daybreak	p. 78
The Animals	p. 81
Is That What You Are	p. 81
The Hydra	p. 82
Some Last Questions	p. 83
An End in Spring	p. 84
I Live Up Here	p. 85
The Last One	p. 86
Unfinished Book of Kings	p. 88
It Is March	p. 91
Bread at Midnight	p. 92
Caesar	p. 92
Pieces for Other Lives	p. 93
The Moths	p. 95
Whenever I Go There	p. 96
Wish	p. 97
The Wave	p. 97
News of the Assassin	p. 98
April	p. 99
The Gods	p. 99
The River of Bees	p. 100
The Widow	p. 101
Looking East at Night	p. 103
The Child	p. 103
A Debt	p. 105
The Plaster	p. 106
In Autumn	p. 107
Crows on the North Slope	p. 107
New Moon in November	p. 108
December Night	p. 108
After the Solstice	p. 109
December Among the Vanished	p. 109
Glimpse of the Ice	p. 110
The Cold Before the Moonrise	p. 110
Early January	p. 110
The Room	p. 111
Dusk in Winter	p. 111
A Scale in May	p. 111
Evening	p. 112
The Dream Again	p. 113
How We Are Spared	p. 113
The Dragonfly	p. 113
Provision	p. 113
The Herds	p. 114
The Mourner	p. 114
For the Anniversary of My Death	p. 115
Divinities	p. 116
The Dry Stone Mason	p. 116
In the Winter of My Thirty-Eighth Year	p. 117
When You Go Away	p. 118
The Asians Dying	p. 118
When the War Is Over	p. 119
Peasant	p. 120
For a Coming Extinction	p. 122
In a Clearing	p. 123
Avoiding News by the River	p. 124
Death of a Favorite Bird	p. 125
Fly	p. 125
The Finding of Reasons	p. 126
Come Back	p. 127
Watchers	p. 128
My Brothers the Silent	p. 128
In One of the Retreats of Morning	p. 129
Looking for Mushrooms at Sunrise	p. 129
Plane	p. 133
Teachers	p. 134
The Owl	p. 134
The Different Stars	p. 136
The Dead Hive	p. 137
The Mountains	p. 138
The Bridges	p. 139
The Hands	p. 140
Do Not Die	p. 140
Words from a Totem Animal	p. 141
Animula	p. 145
Quince	p. 145
The Judgment of Paris	p. 146
Edouard	p. 149
Not These Hills	p. 150
The Piper	p. 151
The Lake	p. 152
The Church	p. 153
A Calm in April	p. 154
The Birds on the Morning of Going	p. 154
Envoy from D'aubigne	p. 155
Encounter	p. 157
The Well	p. 157
Lark	p. 158
The Black Plateau	p. 159
The Approaches	p. 161
The Wheels of the Trains	p. 162
Lackawanna	p. 162
Other Travellers to the River	p. 164
The Trail Into Kansas	p. 164
Western Country	p. 165
The Gardens of Zuni	p. 166
Homeland	p. 167
February	p. 167
Huckleberry Woman	p. 168
Little Horse	p. 169
The Port	p. 170
Presidents	p. 171
The Free	p. 172
The Prints	p. 173
The Removal	p. 173
The Old Room	p. 176
The Night of the Shirts	p. 177
Shoe Repairs	p. 178
Age	p. 179
Laughter	p. 180
Snowfall	p. 180
Banishment in Winter	p. 181
Footprints on the Glacier	p. 182
Tale	p. 183
Full Moonlight in Spring	p. 183
Night Wind	p. 183
Midnight in Early Spring	p. 184
As Though I Was Waiting for That	p. 185
The Plumbing	p. 186
Beginning of the Plains	p. 187
Ascent	p. 188
The Hulk	p. 188
Fear	p. 189
Pilate	p. 193
Shore	p. 195
Psalm: Our Fathers	p. 196
Cuckoo Myth	p. 200
Second Psalm: The Signals	p. 201
The Pens	p. 203
The Forbears	p. 204
Voice	p. 204
Last People	p. 205
Third Psalm: The September Vision	p. 207
After the Harvests	p. 208
Now It Is Clear	p. 208
Man With One Leaf in October Night	p. 209
Woman from the River	p. 209
Late Night in Autumn	p. 210
Still Afternoon Light	p. 210
Kin	p. 210
Memory of Spring	p. 211
Signs	p. 211
The Paw	p. 214
The Thread	p. 216
The Blessing	p. 217
Beginning	p. 218
The First Darkness	p. 218
The Chaff	p. 219
Fourth Psalm: The Cerements	p. 219
The Web	p. 221
Letter	p. 223
Inscription Facing Western Sea	p. 224
The Sadness	p. 225
The Calling Under the Breath	p. 225
Sunset After Rain	p. 226
Elegy	p. 226
In the Time of the Blossoms	p. 226
Early One Summer	p. 229
Eyes of Summer	p. 229
End of Summer	p. 229
The Distances	p. 230
Looking Back	p. 230
Song of Man Chipping Arrowhead	p. 231
The Silence Before Harvest	p. 231
Cat Ghosts	p. 232
Letter to the Heart	p. 232
Memory of the Loss of Wings	p. 232
The Old Boast	p. 233
The Day	p. 233
The Clear Skies	p. 233
To Be Sung While Still Looking	p. 234
Under the Migrants	p. 235
On the Silent Anniversary of a Reunion	p. 236
On Each Journey	p. 236
Beyond You	p. 237
Their Week	p. 237
Old Flag	p. 238
The Current	p. 239
Something I've Not Done	p. 240
Tool	p. 240
Bread	p. 241
Habits	p. 242
A Door	p. 243
A Door	p. 244
A Door	p. 246
A Door	p. 246
Surf-Casting	p. 247
At the Same Time	p. 248
The Wharf	p. 249
Beggars and Kings	p. 250
The Unwritten	p. 250
Spring	p. 251
The Place of Backs	p. 252
Division	p. 252
A Purgatory	p. 253
The Chase	p. 254
A Wood	p. 255
Nomad Songs	p. 256
The Diggers	p. 256
Ash	p. 257
Animals from Mountains	p. 258
Sibyl	p. 259
Who It Is	p. 260
Mist	p. 261
Under Black Leaves	p. 261
A Sickness at the Equinox	p. 262
Wanting a Soul in the South	p. 263
Horses	p. 264
Ship	p. 264
Words	p. 265
One Time	p. 265
The Way Ahead	p. 266
Summits	p. 267
To the Hand	p. 267
Folk Art	p. 268
The Second Time	p. 268
Exercise	p. 269
Instructions to Four Walls	p. 270
In the Life of Dust	p. 272
A Flea's Carrying Words	p. 273
When the Horizon Is Gone	p. 274
The Lantern	p. 275
Apparition	p. 276
A Number	p. 277
Dogs	p. 278
The War	p. 278
The Water of the Suns	p. 279
A Prayer of the Eyes	p. 280
The Cry	p. 281
By the Cloud Path	p. 282
A Hollow	p. 283
For Saying That It Won't Matter	p. 283
Foreword	p. 284
Finding a Teacher	p. 285
The Palace	p. 286
Ballade of Sayings	p. 287
To the Rain	p. 288
The Dreamers	p. 289
September	p. 290
Flies	p. 290
The Writing on a Fallen Leaf	p. 291
South	p. 291
Span	p. 292
Meeting	p. 292
History of Alchemy	p. 293
The Initiate	p. 294
The Search	p. 294
Glass	p. 295
Traveling	p. 296
The Track	p. 296
Peril	p. 297
The Sleeping Mountain	p. 298
Gift	p. 299
Index	p. 301
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.