(in memory of Edward Tayler, pictured left)
Of all the Elizabethans
we studied in Ted Tayler’s
fabled senior seminar
at Columbia, Fulke Greville
towered above the rest
of the masters of
witty conceits extravagantly
spun out
for maximum meaning
and beauty of design
and moral truth.
Greville could write about despair
with the best of them,
with reports from “down
in the depth of [his] iniquity."
But the chances are he
got his kicks, too, as I infer
from the poem in Caelica
which chronicles the history
of a hard-on: “All my senses,
like beacon’s flame.”
This amazing and amusing poem
treats the subject of
manly arousal gone to waste.
“There stand I with Arctic pole,”
but the night is unconsummated
because the lady has fallen asleep
during the fellow’s poetic yawn seduction speech.
The poem begins with "all"
and ends with "lies," and the lesson
not only opposes truth to action but also
endorses what can be called a moral empiricism:
"None can well behold with eyes
But what underneath him lies.”
Now there’s a closing couplet for you.
—
Reminder: Memorial tribute for Edward W. Tayler is scheduled for 3 PM on Friday, March 15, 2019, at Low Memorial Library (rotunda) on the Columbia Univesity campus