The Poet And The Prostitute

You
Didn’t know what to do
But did it with such panache
For cash.

O my sweet
Girls must eat
While poets spend their time
In rhyme.

—

The above was prompted by my reading of Ernest Christopher Dowson’s “Cynara”, http://www.bartleby.com/336/687.html. Dowson belonged to the school of decadent poets and in “Cynara” he contrasts his unrequited love for a young woman with his (present) relationship with a prostitute. “Cynara” is a fine poem and Dowson deserves to be better known than he is.

[image error]