YEUX GLAUQUES

Gladstone was still respected,

When John Ruskin produced

“Kings’ Treasuries”; Swinburne

And Rossetti still abused.

Fœtid Buchanan lifted up his voice

When that faun’ s head of hers

Became a pastime for

Painters and adulterers.

The Burne-Jones cartons

Have preserved her eyes;

Still, at the Tate, they teach

Cophetua to rhapsodize;

Thin like brook-water,

With a vacant gaze.

The English Rubaiyat was still-born

In those days.

The thin, clear gaze, the same

Still darts out faun-like from the half-ruin’ d face,

Questing and passive....

“Ah, poor Jenny’ s case”...

Bewildered that a world

Shows no surprise

At her last maquero’ s

Adulteries.