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Rh Only an arch levity saves this from being trite. I should have to quote too much before I could illustrate his amusement with the possible delusions of men's thoughts. But occasionally a serious shudder is glimpsed behind the smiling mask.

His sovran preoccupation, that which inspired his best poems, was the least suitable for one whom some have imagined cut out for the part of a modern Antinous, to whom the elite of London, both male and female, should corporately play the part of a platonic Hadrian. His thoughts flocked about death. At first he dallies with them.

But his contemplation of possible significance in life's end passes gradually into serener moods.

CLOUDS

the blue night the unending columns press

In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow,

Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow

Up to the white moon's hidden loveliness. 22