Letter To A Purist

That grandiose colossus who

Stood astride

The envious assaults of sea

(Essaying, wave by wave,

Tide by tide,

To undo him, perpetually),

Has nothing on you,

O my love,

O my great idiot, who

With one foot

Caught (as it were) in the muck-trap

Of skin and bone,

Dithers with the other way out

In preposterous provinces of the madcap

Cloud-cuckoo,

Agawp at the impeccable moon.