superfluities compound themselves

                         


















                                  Reprobate Silver









 Freighted with allusion "of the sort to which we are
   accustomed,"
Hand wrought slang — in the spirit of Cellini and after the
   manner of Thor —

Like Panshin's horse, not permitted to be willful,
Trembling incessantly and champing at the bit —
It is worthy of examination.
It is quite as much a matter of art as the careful
And a kind of Carthage by Flaubert.
It is like the castles in the air that manufacture themselves

Out of clouds before our eyes
When we are listening to a scientific explanation of things
   in which we are not interested.
The fact that there is no justification for its existence
And that perhaps it had to be written
About what ought never to have been written at all.












                                                 Marianne Moore