““The Poet" His teeth splayed in a way he'd notice and pity in his closest enemies or friends. Youth held his eye; he blinked at passing beauties, birds of passage that could not close the gap. His wife was high-blooded, he counted on her living-- she lived, past sixty, then lived on in him, and often when he plotted lines, she breathed her acrid sweetness past his imaginings. She was still a magnificent handle of a woman-- did she have her lover as a novelist wished her? No--hating someone nearer, she found her voice-- no wife so loved; though Hardy, home from cycling, was glad to climb unnoticed to his study by a circling outside staircase, his own design.””
