Pale Fire (Vintage International)

Come and be worshiped, come and be caressed, 270 My dark Vanessa, crimson-barred, my blest My Admirable butterfly! Explain How could you, in the gloam of Lilac Lane, Have let uncouth, hysterical John Shade Blubber your face, and ear, and shoulder blade?

And all the time, and all the time, my love, 950 You too are there, beneath the word, above The syllable, to underscore and stress The vital rhythm. One heard a woman’s dress Rustle in days of yore. I’ve often caught The sound and sense of your approaching thought. And all in you is youth, and you make new, By quoting them, old things I made for yo

cognomen

Now I shall spy on beauty as none has Spied on it yet. Now I shall cry out as None has cried out. Now I shall try what none Has tried. Now I shall do what none has done.

A wrench, a rift—that’s all one can foresee. Maybe one finds le grand néant; maybe Again one spirals from the tuber’s eye.

I feel I understand Existence, or at least a minute part Of my existence, only through my art,

In later years it started to decline: Buddhism took root. A medium smuggled in 640 Pale jellies and a floating mandolin. Fra Karamazov, mumbling his inept All is allowed, into some classes crept; And to fulfill the fish wish of the womb, A school of Freudians headed for the tomb.

And so I pare my nails, and muse, and hear Your steps upstairs, and all is right, my dear.

This friendship was the more precious for its tenderness being intentionally concealed, especially when we were not alone, by that gruffness which stems from what can be termed the dignity of the heart.