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the white boat 61
III
Over at the Academy
martial of bilbilis
Nothing in Rome escaped his glance, he understood
This touchy sort of verse,
And mixed the poor ones with the good:
Your even book, he said, is worse.
Old and fed up this son of Bilbilis went home,
A harsh hill town with a cold
River below, that shipped to Rome
A lot of iron, a little gold.
so-and-so reassesses yeats
The mystery's not that like the poet you are made of dust & spittle,
It is that after all these years you'd look so hard & see so little.
reading
Doing my best, fi rst with the intricate
Bold sudden `heart-deep' wit
Of Herbert's poems, then
Out of a harsh professional obligation
Turning to Maul du Pin
And Willis Hiller, is a revelation:
For in these latter I fi nd
Myself kept busy slowing down my mind --
Slow, slow, still slower ... staying with the creep
Of the meaning there, the meaning of the creep.