George Moore

In speaking of ‘aspiration,’
 From the recesses of a pen more dolorous than blackness 
  itself,
 Were you presenting us with one more form of imperturbable
  French drollery,
 Or was it self directed banter?
 Habitual ennui
 Took from you, your invisible, hot helmet of anaemia—
 While you were filling your “little glass” from the
 decanter
 Of a transparent-murky, would-be-truthful “hobohemia”—
 And then facetiously
 Went off with it? Your soul’s supplanter,
 The spirit of good narrative, flatters you, convinced that
 in reporting briefly
One choice incident, you have known beauty other than that 
  of stys, on
Which to fix your admiration.

  So far as the future is concerned,
“Shall not one say, with the Russian philosopher,
  ‘How is one to know what one doesn’t know?’”
  So far as the present is concerned,

If external action is effete
  And rhyme is outmoded,
  I shall revert to you,
  Habakkuk, as on a recent occasion I was goaded
 Into doing, by XY, who was speaking of unrhymed 
 verse.
This man said—I think that I repeat
 His identical words:
 “Hebrew poetry is
 Prose with a sort of heightened consciousness. ‘Ecstacy
  affords
 The occasion and expediency determines the form.’”