In a message dated 31/10/2006 18:23:15 GMT Standard Time,
NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU writes:
I've finally tracked down the Edsel Ford poem from
which Kinbote
quotes. I found it on page 76 of Ford's collection /A Thicket
of Sky/
(Homestead House, 1961).
The Image of Desire
We never knew when next the fox might strike,
But many a dark night
lying in the loft
Straining our ears to catch the swift, the soft,
The
cunning coming of him or his like,
We held a fortress as men hold a
wake:
Silent and grim, bound to a solemn task
Which wasn't interrupted
even to ask
The time; our boyhood honor was at stake.
And often when the
cock crew, shaking fire
Out of the morning and the misty mow,
We stayed
on, staring, hard put to leave off--
Lest in the wood the image of
desire
Spring up behind us yapping, although now
We know we've kept this
vigil long enough.
What a wonderful discovery by Matthew! Immediately (to me) it becomes
clear that Shade was shadowing Edsel Ford, not Frost. And thereby
Wordsworth [ie The Prelude] at a further remove; but covering up his
indebtedness. This is not dissimilar to the charlatan Ezra's concealment of his
moonlight theft from poor, melancholy Lolita Iddings in 1911.
And what poetry!
"Which wasn't interrupted even to ask
The time;"
Astonishing !
CHW