Wilbur's first book, "The Beautiful Changes" (1947), marked him immediately as something special. A trace of indebtedness to Yeats and a clear line of descent from Marianne Moore were visible as signs that his talent was still emergent, but of the existence of that talent there could be no doubt. The poems, richly worded and strictly formal, nevertheless moved within their strictures with an ease and assurance that marked Wilbur as the possessor of as fine an ear for the smooth-flowing line and the self-rounding stanza rhythm as could be claimed by any man now writing in English. He had, moreover, achieved a metaphoric sense undeniably his own. Consider for example this description of a ballet dancer fresh from the formal perfections of her dance and now slumped into the shapelessness of human fatigue:

     So she will turn and walk through metal halls
     To where some ancient woman will...