Page:Hugh Selwyn Mauberley.djvu/20

 20 XII.

APHNE with her thighs in bark Stretches toward me her leafy hands",— Subjectively. In the stuffed-satin drawing-room I await The Lady Valentine's commands,

Knowing my coat has never been Of precisely the fashion To stimulate, in her, A durable passion;

Doubtful, somewhat, of the value Of well-gowned approbation Of literary effort, But never of The Lady Valentine's vocation:

Poetry, her border of ideas, The edge, uncertain, but a means of blending With other strata Where the lower and higher have ending;

A hook to catch the Lady Jane's attention, A modulation toward the theatre, Also, in the case of revolution, A possible friend and comforter.



Conduct, on the other hand, the soul "Which the highest cultures have nourished" To Fleet St. where Dr. Johnson flourished;

Beside this thoroughfare The sale of half-hose has Long since superseded the cultivation Of Pierian roses.