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Article snippet: Richard Wilbur, whose meticulous, urbane poems earned him two Pulitzer Prizes and selection as the national poet laureate, died on Saturday in Belmont, Mass. He was 96. His son Christopher confirmed his death, in a nursing home. Across more than 60 years as an acclaimed American poet, Mr. Wilbur followed a muse who prized traditional virtuosity over self-dramatization; as a consequence he often found himself out of favor with the literary authorities who preferred the heat of artists like Sylvia Plath and Allen Ginsberg. He received his first Pulitzer in 1957, and a National Book Award as well, for “Things of This World.” The collection included “A Baroque Wall-Fountain in the Villa Sciarra,” which the poet and critic Randall Jarrell called “one of the most marvelously beautiful, one of the most nearly perfect poems any American has written.” In the poem, Mr. Wilbur, observing statuary in a fountain — “showered fauns” — concludes: They are at rest in fulness of desire For what is given, they do not tire Of the smart of the sun, the pleasant water-douse And riddled pool below, Reproving our disgust and our ennui With humble insatiety. Francis, perhaps, who lay in sister snow Before the wealthy gate Freezing and praising, might have seen in this No trifle, but a shade of bliss — That land of tolerable flowers, that state As near and far as grass Where eyes become the sunlight, and the hand Is worthy of water: the dreamt land Toward which all hun... Link to the full article to read more