Poems June 1994
Bach and the lady
Do not sneer, stranger, if one by one,
The crowd who followed her are gone
To strangle their own shadows, or lie
Bitterly with a harlot. I
Have heard in a Bach fugue some phrase,
Perplexed with flowers and sunlight, wake
The green-leaved morning to her praise;
More generous, pitiful than we
However casual may be
The comment that her shoulders make.
May 1927
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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 12 Number 10, on page 37
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