Beyond the bulge of his tall candles you sit Reading Henry James. The walls are stern With lithographs. There is a blur of glassware about you And straight between the windows, Portrait of your grim Presbyterian. Lodged in this swing of splintered bric-a-brac You sit a goddess, reading in his room, Above your sloping shoulders at the right Of his long line of volumes is a bust Of a Bacchante, starting from the gloom. |