Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment

(William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927), U.S. poet. For the Anniversary of My Death (l. 6-7). . . New Oxford Book of American Verse, The. Richard Ellmann, ed. (1976) Oxford University Press.)

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me

(William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927), U.S. poet. For the Anniversary of My Death (l. 1-2). . . New Oxford Book of American Verse, The. Richard Ellmann, ed. (1976) Oxford University Press.)

who should moor at his edge
And fare on afoot would find gates of no gardens,
But the hill of dark underfoot diving,
Closing overhead, the cold deep, and drowning.
He is called Leviathan, and named for rolling,

(William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927), U.S. poet. Leviathan (l. 18-22). . . New Oxford Book of American Verse, The. Richard Ellmann, ed. (1976) Oxford University Press.)

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.

(William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927), U.S. poet. Separation (l. 1-2). . . Norton Anthology of Poetry, The. Alexander W. Allison and others, eds. (3d ed., 1983) W. W. Norton & Company.)

Rain falls into the open eyes of the dead
Again again with its pointless sound
When the moon finds them they are the color of everything

(William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927), U.S. poet. The Asians Dying (l. 10-12). . . New Oxford Book of American Verse, The. Richard Ellmann, ed. (1976) Oxford University Press.)

The ghosts of the villages trail in the sky
Making a new twilight

(William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927), U.S. poet. The Asians Dying (l. 8-9). . . New Oxford Book of American Verse, The. Richard Ellmann, ed. (1976) Oxford University Press.)

This is the black sea-brute bulling through wave-wrack,

(William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927), U.S. poet. Leviathan (l. 1). . . New Oxford Book of American Verse, The. Richard Ellmann, ed. (1976) Oxford University Press.)

Where he gets his spirits
It's a mystery. But the stuff keeps him musical:

(William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927), U.S. poet. The Drunk in the Furnace (l. 15-16). . . Norton Anthology of Poetry, The. Alexander W. Allison and others, eds. (3d ed., 1983) W. W. Norton & Company.)

all afternoon
Their witless offspring flock like piped rats to its siren
Crescendo, and agape on the crumbling ridge
Stand in a row and learn.

(William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927), U.S. poet. The Drunk in the Furnace (l. 25-28). . . Norton Anthology of Poetry, The. Alexander W. Allison and others, eds. (3d ed., 1983) W. W. Norton & Company.)

The sea curling,
Star-climbed, wind-combed, cumbered with itself still
As at first it was, is the hand no yet contented
Of the Creator. And he waits for the world to begin.

(William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927), U.S. poet. Leviathan (l. 36-39). . . New Oxford Book of American Verse, The. Richard Ellmann, ed. (1976) Oxford University Press.)