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uncertain hymn,
    and unseen birds contribute trembling cries.
    When did the summer censor choiring things?
    We know the blood is brutal though it sings.

On Sending You a Lock of My Hair
    There is a white wood house near Hampstead Heath
    in whose garden the nightingale still sings.
    Though Keats is dead, the bird who sang of death
    returns with melodies, on easeful wings.
    A lock of hair the poet’s love received
    remains in the room where first it was shorn;
    An heirloom, its history half-believed,
    its strands now faded and its ribbon worn.
    On polished floors, through squares of summer sun
    I felt his footsteps move, as if the elf
    —deceiving elf, he called her—had not done
    with making mischief to amuse herself.
    I saw him clip that tousled lock of hair,
    and though he did not offer it to me,
    I felt that I was privileged, standing there,
    and took his gesture for my legacy.

In Defense of the English Portrait School
    Apologists blame it on the English
    temperament, which “unable to conceive
    the monumental,” called for stylish
    portraits of the rich. The critics forgive
    Gainsborough, considering the bad taste
    of his patrons: if you squint and pretend
    that the satin isn’t satin, a feast
    of color awaits you, they recommend.
    The stoop-shouldered young men with knotted brows
    walk through the English gallery sullenly,
    still denying the sun-dappled meadows
    of a vanished upper class. A lady
    Lawrence painted dangles gloves of amber
    suede between fingers slim from idleness;
    Her satin cape blowing in October
    wind is heavy, silvery white and soundless,
    addressing itself to clouds of similar
    stuff. She looks away unmindful that she
    is not profound, or even popular.
    Across from her a rake whose pedigree
    is told in the knowing curl of his lip,
    slaps the sleek rump of his burnished brown mare.
    He holds a leather crop and at his hip
    his watch fob glints; he waits and on a dare
    he’d take the pasture at a gallop, jump
    the highest fences, hooves making hollows
    in the echoing air. Three children, plump
    with laughter, are busy feeding sparrows
    on another canvas. They toss their heads
    to shake their curls with sunlight, stretch their arms
    to show their puckered hands. The boy who spreads
    the bread crumbs on the ground, quietly disarms
    us, though we know he probably grew old,
    deserved his gout, had a borough in each
    pocket, and unknowing died a cuckold.
    It is his splendid childhood we reproach
    by thinking of the vices he was heir to;
    envy calling history as witness
    to taint the boyish smile the artist drew.
    Oh leave the poor aristocrats in peace!
    No one is fooled, for Hogarth painted too;
    and though not democratic, art can please—
    the cavil is absurd, the colors true.

To X. (With Ephemeral Kisses)
    I hear you will not fall in love with me
    because I come without a guarantee,
    because someday I may depart at whim
    and leave you desolate, abandoned, grim.
    If that’s the case, what use to be alive?
    In loving life you love what can’t survive:
    and if you grow too fond and lose your head,
    it’s all for nought—for someday you’ll be dead.
    Maintain a cool detachment through the years.
    Wear blinders, dear, put cotton in your ears.
    Since worms will taste the tongue that tastes the wine,
    burst not the grape against your palate fine.
    With care, your puny heart will still be whole
    the day they come to fetch your tepid soul.
    And as that strumpet, Life, deals her last blow,
    you’ll have this final consolatio:
    you’ll snap your flippant fingers as you fall,
    and say, “I never cared for her at all!”

The Lives of the Poets: Three Profiles
    I.
    He was content to speak of little things—
    the sound of raindrops on a roof, the scent
    of spring, a field of haystacks, a hill
    of cherry trees, a pebble’s smoothness
    or a thrush’s wings; nor ever seemed to care
    that nations fought, that men and women loved,
    that young men died, that scholars quarreled,
    that politicians lied, that