You say my poetry unfairly seduces
And trades in methods that are mad,
But just as education has its uses,
I, too, teach sadness not to be so sad.
You never loved learning and its books,
And fled the lure of handsome teachers.
If love’s embarrassing long looks
Are cured by wisdom’s lonesome preachers,
You already know what poetry does
And what I, the critic-poet, can do;
I’m the poet your school-girl always was
And what your vulnerable beauty always knew.
Love is a madness, and so it isn’t true,
But my madness includes love and my love includes you.
