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136
What the Sea Muttered
With a variation on a theme of Goya
You haven't kept the reader busy enough.
I know, I know -- it comes of my long aff air
With the clear and ordinary; all my care
May fail to hold the intensity in the stuff .
Too many off -rhymes, rhythms strained and rough,
You crash the delicate old barrier
Between octave and sestet
. I declare
My shame before the masters. You sheer off
From the whole truth: not even writing of
That day you found you'd fallen out of love
With running down here, much less of harder themes
.
-- The reason sleeps, and monsters shape the dreams
Which are the things we're doing in broad day,
The monstrous half-done.... Nolo contendere.