Sublime

“Ross Wilcox’s a prat, not a poet. But if you’re going to suggest that I write a poem to Dawn Madden, no way. I’d be the village laughingstock.” “Absolutely, if you compose derivative verses of cupids and cliché, Miss Madden will remain with her ‘prat’ and you will justly earn derision. But if a poem is beauty and truth, your Miss Madden will treas

And now here is my pocket Petrarch,

I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

“Ada, our ardors and arbors”—a dactylic trimeter that was to remain Van Veen’s only contribution to Anglo-American poetry—sang through his brain.

Beloved, I’m yours As I’ve always been From marrow to pore From longing to skin

elegiac.

“Oh Lord, we beseech thee . . . direct our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God.”