I thought I'd need some poetry today
and so I pulled some favorites off the shelves:
Byron and Cummings--those speak for themselves.
The Brownings, Donne, and St. Vincent Millay;
I passed on Burns, preferring Heaney's brogue
to his; took Housman's regimental verse,
the holy joy of Hopkins, the perverse
delight of Lord Rochester, that old rogue.
Jack Butler, who can wrap his pain and mine
in smiles and mathematics, make them sing;
Marvell I took, Swinburne I left behind
with many others I'd have liked to bring.
"Next time," I promised, so to make amends,
then left, my arms weight down with old, dear friends.
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