Classic Poem

Gladstone was still respected,
When John Ruskin produced
" Kings' Treasuries " ; Swinburne
And Rossetti still abused.

Faetid 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 faunlike 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