not be possible at all, but he gets awaynwith:nIt has been three years, now.nThere has been no sign ofnthe groundhog.nI stood there in thenwhirling summer.nMy hand capped a witherednheart.nAnd thought of China andnof Greece,nOf Alexander in his tent;nOf Montaigne in his tower,nOf Saint Theresa in hernwild lament.nIs it because I read this in the eleventhngrade that it seems right? I don’tnthink it’s just that. I am not absolutelynconfident of “My hand capped a witherednheart,” now that I look at it hard,nbut I do trust the rest. It is specific andnmysterious at the same time. And I amnpersuaded that, for a young man’snpoem, there is a rightness to this and annhonesty to the admission that the spiritncan, at the oddest times and occasions,nsoar that way. And if that can happen, itnis the poet’s duty to keep the faithnsomehow and try to find not just thenequivalent but the absolutely indispensablenlanguage to represent such ansoaring.nRichard Wilbur, also a heavyweightn(Pulitzer, Bollingen, and NBA winner,nand poet laureate of the United Statesnuntil Howard Nemerov took over fromnhim), also has a book out, a majorncollection that is rather more handsomelynproduced than Eberhart’s (butnwhich also lacks an index of titles andnfirst lines). What is striking about Wilburnis how he almost never makesnmistakes. There will be, at the verynworst, a slight self-indulgence in thentoo-perfect, almost self-congratulatorynlow-frequency word that calls attentionnnot only to itself but the talent andnvirtuosity of the writer. This, though, isna small price to pay and, in any event, isncentral to what I take Wilbur to bendoing, for his poems are, among othernthings, confrontations of proficiencynand sensibility with the welter and messnof experience. The typical Wilbur performancenbegins with something simplen—an array of laundry strung across anRoman street, for instance — and imposesnupon it, or persuades from it,nsomething orderly and significant.ntransmogrifying some dumb datum intonsomething as memorable and eloquentnas “Love Calls Us to the Things of ThisnWorld.” There must be a dozen suchnpieces, astonishingly graceful demonstrationsnnot only of mastery but also ofnsanity and rightness. It is perhaps whennhe is at his saddest that the saving gracenof his work is most clear. He says, forninstance, at the end of “CottagenStreet,” a poem about Sylvia Plath, thatnshe isncondemned to live,nShall study for a decade,nas she must,nTo state at last hernbrilliant negativenIn poems free and helplessnand unjust.nWilbur’s poems are anything butnhelpless, and it is their justice and thenjustice of his language that has a psychologicalnand moral as well as literarynreliability. He can be playful or serious,ncheerful or dour, but he is never nuttynor sloppy or disproportionate. He cannalso reach for a word and, by his grasp,nextend our limits. He has an elegy fornDudley Fitts—a man who was mynteacher—that has in it what I’ve alwaysnthought of as a remarkable series ofnmoves:nYet in the mind as innThe shut closetnWhere his coat hangs in blacknprocession.nThere is a covert muster.nOne is moved to turn to him,nThe exceptional man.nTelling him all these things,nand waitingnFor the deft, lucid answer.nAt the sound of thatnvoice’s deepnSpecific silence.nThe sun winks and fails innthe window.nLight perpetual keep him.nTo begin with, “covert muster” isnamazing, the paradigmatic Wilbur turn.nThe assemblage of coats in the darknessnof the closet is impressive and formal.nThe odd ring to the conjunction ofnLatinate adjective and slightly archaicnnoun suggests the funereal decorum ofnthe occasion. “Muster” also suggestsn”master,” which is right because Fittsnnnwas both a prep-school master and anmaestro of poets. And then to go fromnthe darkness of the closet to “lucid,”nand from that to the light of the sunnwinking and failing in the window (itnhas been prepared for, earlier in thenpoem), and from that to the closingnprayer, “Light perpetual keep him,” isnboth intricate and effortless. The poemnis about the realization of absence, thenempty coats in the closet, the “soundnof that voice’s deep/ Specific silence,”nand the light winking and failing — andnthen coming back, at least as a presencento be invoked. I simply can’tnimagine anything better accomplished.nAuden says somewhere that poetsnare not reliable judges of the work ofnother poets, and that there is a risk thatnwe may prefer a second-rate poet fromnwhom we can learn to a first-rate poetnfrom whom we can’t. I think there isnsubstantial truth in that warning, whichnprompts me to admit that I have consciouslynaddressed myself to Wilbur’snpoetry to learn from it as well as I couldnand to take as much as I was able ofnwhat I believe to be the highest level ofnconsistent craftsmanship in any poetnnow writing in English (or, putting itnanother way, in any poet since Audennhimself). I have assumed what I supposenWilbur must assume, that we arengiven lives and personalities and wenmake of them what we can. The wholenidea of craft is that it prevents you fromnmessing up your opportunities, fromnbotching good ideas or betraying promisingnstarts. I think there are poems innthis new Wilbur volume that are lessnimpressive than others — that’s inevitable,nsurely. But there is no poem that isnbotched, or stupid, or embarrassing.nAnd there are a very great number thatnare astonishing and admirable.nOn the other hand, there are poemsnin Eberhart that are astonishing too,nand that may be even more impressivenbecause of the gaps and lapses in sonmuch of the work. If it is true, asnEberhart claims, that these pieces arenoften “given,” or, in his phrase, “emittednin a high state of consciousness andncontrol [so that] one has not had tonchange a word or maybe only a word orntwo,” it’s not only difficult to criticizenbut it is also beside the point. For whatnhe — and we — have been given, thenonly sane and intelligent thing to do isnto give thanks. We can ignore what wendon’t like. That is what happens any-nJANUARY 1989/39n