Reynolds and Midway 44

                                         for Gavin Douglas in Heaven

The durris and the windois all war breddit

With massie gold, quhairof the fynes scheddit.

With birneist euir baith Palace and towris

War theikit weill, maist craftelie that cled it,

For sa the quhitlie blanschit bone ouirspred it,

Midlit with gold anamalit all colouris,

Importurait of birdis and sweit flouris,

Curious knottis, and mony hie deuise,

Quhilks to behald war perfite paradise.

sd Reynolds, quoting from his pate as we

went wambling headlong in our revery

and reverént revéls, as Ian croond it,

not to ape good Father Hopkins, he

of that sprung rhythm, wich was taught to me

in mony a buik whose leaves instilléd glee

when I o'erturnd them w indéx and thumb

whan we were yonge and narrow, quhite and dumb,

but inky as a monk in a scriptorium.

Now what became of William's telling query

minds that grok in yrs not distant very,

wich to invert beyond what we'd expect,

and far beyond the good and necessary,

is but to lovely mimick one whose merry

lines in Yoda-speak made readers wary

and eyeballs tried and true and likewise weary

if not plain angry at such craft suspéct,

wich Dickey thoght, we thoght in retrospect,

but not w/o respect. Now w respect

to Bawby, wich is hér pronunciation,

who came from nigh on Pittsburgh there in Penn's

sylvania , where they tunneld through the mts,

as you can see when driving thro' the nation,

leastways that region [insert rime: think fountains,

think counting, think of Emmet who'd say countins]

close by those famous chocolate factories

whose smells were wafted sweetly on each breeze

that cloyingly wended. Bawby's skin is pale,

his Boddie° slender as a girl's, his wristes

narrow, knuckld bigly, but his fistes

never bunch to strike. He wld not wail

Medieval style on maiden nor on mail,

nor can he think a thoght that pugilistes

think when in a ring w other fighters

throwing hands like mony dicky blighters

taking waspies in the welkin.  Stale

the air of Bawby's close and small apartment,

wich May did open up when she wld visit—

she that she who hails from Pennsylvania,

whom we've written on above [revisit

stanza iv.] and have renamed w love,

whose eyes were ever on the stars above

the jagged peaks of brown and stunted hills

in something of a sort of astromania

(that of the astrological department,

not astronomy), whose cherry lips

did light on his that starry starry knight

when he did ope his mouth and shyly askd her:

May I kiss you , and she said, you may ,

wich isn't why I turnd her into May,

tho' you may think it. Such allowance taskd her

hardly, given God's Will to obey,

and man's; but none wld her deep love eclipse

come hell, highwater, or Apocalypse.

°for you, John, & thx.

- 6.18.14