BOOKS
167
manner that proves too easy on the writer, are redeemed by a factive
spirit, "turn [ing] at bay upon the compleasant maxims of the age,"
forcing them "back upon an urgent and surprising redefinition."
It
is in
this spirit that "prodigal ever returning/ darkness," the burden of Hill's
poetry,
yields nothing
finally -
but by occasion
visions of truth or dreams
as they arise -
to terms of grace .
where grace has surprised us -
the unsustaining
wondrously sustained
Amy Clampitt and James Merrill
STEPHEN MEYER
A SILENCE OPENS. By Atny Clampitt.
Alfred A. Knopf. $20.00.
A SCATTERING OF SALTS. By James Merrill.
Alfred A. Knopf.
$20.00.
We pretend that art is long to compensate for the shortness of life,
but the sad truth is that at the time of a poet's death we can
contemplate art's own kind of brevity. In 1994 and 1995 those who
mourned the loss of Amy Clampitt and James Merrill, the silencing of
voices taken for granted, also lamented the loss of poems yet unmade.
While grateful for what remained behind, we could still feel stunned that
more was not in the offing. Clampitt was the world's oldest younger
