Into as many pieces of oblivion
As he had reasons, or believed he had,
After those empty years, for their extinction.
“They were so ‘temerarious’ and ‘exotic’
When they were written twenty years ago,
He said, “that all who saw them laughed at them—
Not seeing with me that they would be today
About as temerarious and exotic
As Handel’s hat. They were good harbingers,
But were they living they would not be mine;
They were not what it was that I was doing
The while I did them. Many, if they were theirs,
Would eat their ears for joy, but they‘re not theirs,
Or mine. Glory to God, they’re nowhere now.
They were not mine; they were not yet the vintage;
[ 38 ]
