"Richard Purdy Wilbur" is an American poet and literary translator. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987, and twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1957 and again in 1989.

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The little dog lay curled and did not rise But slept the deeper as the ashes rose, And found the people incomplete.

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To this congress the poet speaks not of peculiar and personal things, but of what in himself is most common, most anonymous, most fundamental, most true of all men.

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What you hope for is that at some point of the pointless journey, indoors or out, and when you least expect it, right in the middle of your stride, like that, so neatly that you never feel a thing, the kind assassin Sleep will draw a bead and blow yo.

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It is true that the poet does not directly address his neighbors; but he does address a great congress of persons who dwell at the back of his mind, a congress of all those who have taught him and whom he has admired; they constitute his ideal audience and his better self.

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That's what (Hill) died for, the right for people to protest. But I don't think a funeral is the right place or context in the way they are protesting. It's not something the family needs to hear, that we're glad your son's dead and that your minister is a whore.

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