Aha!

Read this today:

'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.

- Swift, "Cadenus and Vanessa"

Postlude

Some truths can only be said in jest and some necessarily in verse;
and then there are some nutcases that must come out in a curse.
Which one of these I'll use today should be evident to you by now:
it's only fair that the mode I choose be one that really was hers.

There are those who always want back what to them is dear;
to champion them is not in me, despite how it might appear.
It's rather late, anyway, to want, but there's scope, still, to fear:
what if unlike so much else, love would not disappear?

[February 23, 2015 | Princeton]