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The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.

— Richard Wilbur

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More quotes by Richard Wilbur

What is the opposite of two? A lonely me, a lonely you.

Opposites (1973)

A thrush, because I'd been wrong,
Burst rightly into song
In a world not vague, not lonely,
Not governed by me only.

Writing poetry is talking to oneself; yet it is a mode of talking to oneself in which the self disappears; and the products something that, though it may not be for everybody, is about everybody.

National Book Award Acceptance Speech (1957)

Hebetude. It is a graph of a theme that flings
The dancer kneeling on nothing into the wings,
And Nijinsky hadn't the words to make the laws
For learning to loiter in air; he merely said,
"I merely leap and pause."

We milk the cow of the world, and as we do
We whisper in her ear, "You are not true."

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Richard Wilbur (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.