The First Four Books of Poems

By W.S. Merwin

Book Overview

Half Roundel

I make no prayer
For the spoilt season,
The weed of Eden.
I make no prayer.
Save us the green
In the weed of time.

Now is November;
In night uneasy
Nothing I say.
I make no prayer.
Save us from the water
That washes us away.

What do I ponder?
All smiled disguise,
Lights in cold places,
I make no prayer.
Save us from air
That wears us loosely.

The leaf of summer
To cold has come
In little time.
I make no prayer.
From earth deliver
And the dark therein.

Now is no whisper
Through all the living.
I speak to nothing.
I make no prayer.
Save us from fire
Consuming up and down.

Evening with Lee Shore and Cliffs

Sea-shimmer, faint haze, and far out a bird
Dipping for flies or fish. Then, when over
That wide silk suddenly the shadow
Spread skating, who turned with a shiver
High in the rocks? And knew, then only, the waves'
Layering patience: how they would follow after,
After, dogged as sleep, to his inland
Dreams, oh beyond the one lamb that cried
In the olives, past the pines' derision. And heard
Behind him not the sea's gaiety but its laughter.

The Fishermen

When you think how big their feet are in black rubber
And it slippery underfoot always, it is clever
How they thread and manage among the sprawled nets, lines,
Hooks, spidery cages with small entrances.
But they are used to it. We do not know their names.
They know our needs, and live by them, lending them wiles
And beguilements we could never have fashioned for them;
They carry the ends of our hungers out to drop them
To wait swaying in a dark place we could never have chosen.
By motions we have never learned they feed us.
We lay wreaths on the sea when it has drowned them.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 155659139X
• ISBN13: 9781556591396
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Amazing book

This book is absolutely amazing. I love Merwin so much now. Almost every poem feels like he is talking directly to me or about me in some way. It is everything I would like to say as a poet but dont have the experience to reach this level of genius.

Golden!

One of the greatest books compiled in poetry, Merwin's First Four includes what I believe is one of our most special manuscripts, and that special one would be The Dancing Bears. If you are at all interested in poetry, this is where you should start if you would like a guideline for good taste and well honed syntax. Merwin represents the naturalist and the philosopher as much as Walt Whitman did but with less flare. This stuff is not as formal as some would have you believe, and it is home to some of his best poetry, including more than one of many anthology poems. Do not be scared to purchase. Mystical, inspiring, and it's a shame he would win the pulitzer with The Carrier Of Ladders, from the second four, because it is not nearly as well written, meaningful, nor structured or progressive. While the poetry varies much of it takes an esoteric and unified outlook on living using nature and ideas to explain why things on earth seem so absurd, and it grants these moments a warmth that few poets possess. Poets used to be in the forefront of society, and now that we are all but shadows, time will have its day o'er night, fortress of the star a gift we hold bright, blinded is the fool that wrings to wash, words are but ornaments as delicate frost, serration of all spirit and doom, ragnorak instilled in Shiva's surreptitious tomb, reborn in rainbow spectrums and the swift motion of a cipher's axe, tremble tremble at the foot of Merwin's white meadow intact, poiesis for this celebration cerebral, dancing through perdition in contumelious rewrites, belly-up bears are bouncing dusk and bountiful twilight.

Hard to read for the uninitiated

This is very hard to get into unless you're familiar with Merwin's more contemporary works.In this volume of his first four poetry books, he explores themes familiar to us all: love, animals, folk tales, themes in nature, rivers, and death.His poems are almost all uniquely consistent with the same voice; there is none of the rising up and swelling of other poets, no rhythm to speak of, and one gets the hint that Merwin should've been writing without punctuation at all from the very beginning. He startles you on occassion with his unique insights (White Goat, White Rain) and his great sense of being there in the moment.I think if you like his contemporary poems, then you should try to read this. They're kinda hard to get into. But otherwise a great showing from a great master.